


Extremely Uneventful Subject

by moonflowery



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy x Quynh centric, F/F, Family Bonding, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Immortal Family Bonding, Immortal Wives Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Immortality, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 23,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25652914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonflowery/pseuds/moonflowery
Summary: Six months later, Booker is missing. Finding him, however, involves finding someone else too. Now, Andy and Quynh have a lot to talk about. Joe and Nicky continue to be deeply in love with each other. Booker finally has to face the challenges of sobriety, and therapy. Then there's Nile, who has just decided that she has had enough of the innumerable safe houses. They could all benefit from having a stable home for a while. What could possibly go wrong?or, I decided to put six immortal warriors in a house and give them the happy ending they deserve.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache the Scythian/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 181
Kudos: 486





	1. It's been six months

**Author's Note:**

> florence welch said "And it's hard to write about being happy, 'Cause the older I get, I find that happiness is an extremely uneventful subject"
> 
> and i said okay but what if it's six immortal warriors reunited in a single house, dealing with centuries of unresolved issues and just learning how to be just happy for once? 
> 
> this is the result.
> 
> i hope you like it!

Andy got upset when she watched the news. Something about too many problems in the world and only four of them now to try and fight it all at once. She would get restless and that would lead her directly into a bad mood that she made sure was everyone else’s problem as well. So, during their stay at their most recent safe house, Nile curated a carefully thought out list of nature documentaries that wouldn’t ignite any sudden desires to fight the evils of the world in her noble but moody and recently mortal boss.

The problem with Andy and television was that she thought science fiction was confusing, dramas were unnecessarily complicated, comedies were dumb, action movies were mostly lame, and romances were a touchy subject even after five hundred years. Nature documentaries were the way to go, as long as they avoided life underwater for the same touchy subject.

At first, Andy would scoff, say she had personally fought a lion before and lived to tell the tale (didn’t specify how many times the lion had killed her immortal ass) and put up a fight. But the thing about science is that, if it evolves fast enough to leave dizzy the people of this century that live focused on it, it definitely evolves fast enough to blow the mind of a woman that had to wait thousands and thousands of years to even find out about the existence of penguins, let alone watch documentaries in high definition and extreme details about their lives.

She was easily enraptured by the movies and, Nile discovered, if you left whatever kinds of snacks nearby, she would be content and quiet for hours. Andy insisted that she preferred baklava and similar delicacies, but her sweet tooth wasn’t genuinely very demanding. She had a huge weakness for chocolate, and she would happily finish a bag of gummies by herself. Not that anybody but Joe dared ask her to share. But the fact that he did it with a bright smile and very clearly just to annoy her, would prompt Andy to roll her eyes give her one of the sweet things.

They were at a safe house somewhere in Germany. The third one they had stayed in while in the country because Andy would start to feel insecure after a week or so in the same place. Regardless of Copley’s reassurance that he had their backs on keeping them safe. It was safe to say Nile had traveled more in those six months after meeting them than she had in her entire life before. Participating in a handful of missions had been fun and rewarding, but all the moving around left her particularly homesick. She was, in all honesty, getting fucking tired of it.

So, just like she distracted Andy with documentaries, she distracted herself learning. When they stayed in remote places, houses with big yards around, Nile would train extensively with the others and learn more about fighting than her entire time in the army had taught her. However, sometimes they stayed in small apartments, and knocking each other down to the floor and breaking down furniture, well, it was inadvisable. This resulted in Nile learning other kinds of things, namely, cooking, history, and languages, among other very diverse knowledge that her ancient friends were wealthy of. 

In the kitchen, Nile thought she could handle herself well enough. At least, she did better than Andy, who could get by on black coffee, a burnt piece of toast and a chocolate bar to go. Joe liked cooking the best. No matter how many times he had prepared a meal through the centuries, Nicky was always delighted to taste the final results and that made Joe the happiest. However, his effortless style and his unheard-of-in-modern-days recipes made him hard to keep up for Nile.

The history lessons weren’t any less hard to keep up. Especially when they took the shape of gossiping sessions. Andy, Joe and Nicky would simply share a few of their memories and Nile would be reduced to a loop of “ _She_ was gay?!” “You were _there_?!” “What do you mean that wasn’t original?” and a surprising amount of “You killed _him_?!” Until around the beginning of the sixth month she started to suspect that not all the stories she was being told were actual facts. Upon being confronted about the veracity of her tales, Andy only chuckled and said, “You’re smart, kid. It took Booker a little more than a century to even think about the possibility of this being all bullshit. You think I could actually remember all of this?”

Then, there was that one day, before everything took a turn. Andy was getting lost in a documentary and Joe and Nicky were trying their best at teaching Nile one or two dead languages.

“If nobody uses it anymore, why would I- _why_?” Nile tried to argue with the couple.

“Because it’s beautiful, don’t you think?” Joe replied with a smile, apparently unaware that he used that line to defend most of the things he did.

“Why don’t you give it another try, Nile,” Nicky kindly encouraged her.

The youngest one sighed, “Alright…” But before they could get very far, Andy interrupted them.

“We have to go.”

“ _What_?!” Nile exclaimed, seriously dreading leaving the comfort of a place she was barely getting to know in order to fall into another random safe house. “We’ve barely been here a week, Andy.”

“It’s not like that,” Andy rolled her eyes as she approached them, holding an iPad in her hand. “It’s Booker.”

“ _What_?!” it was Joe’s turn to let out an exclamation, “It’s been just like a week, boss.”

“It’s been six months,” Nicky tried to correct him.

Smitten, Joe gave him a smile and said, “Babe, you’re not helping my case here.”

“Sorry,” Nicky said, though he looked suspiciously proud.

“Hey! Focus,” Andy snapped her fingers to get their attention and dropped the iPad on the table among the books scattered around.

The device, however, made a worrisome clatter as it fell, and also fell face down on the table.

“Uh, guys? I can’t see you,” Copley’s voice was heard from the iPad, until Nile mercifully picked it up and easily angled it so they could have a decent conversation. “Thank you, Nile. I-”

“Hey, James!” Joe excitedly smiled and waved at the image of the man.

Nicky joined him, “How are you?” he asked, speaking a little louder than necessary.

Copley could barely hide his smile. “I’m, uh, I’m good, thank you, Nicky. I- I am calling because there’s been a _situation_.”

“Go to the point, Copley,” Andy interrupted him.

The man sighed, “Alright. As you requested, Andy, I’ve been keeping in touch with Booker. Making sure he is safe and not risking his identity and yours. We had scheduled a call today, but then he didn’t pick up.”

“Did you get stood up, Copley?” Nile asked him with a smirk.

“Ah…” Copley, uncomfortable, rubbed the back of his neck and decided to just blurt the rest of his message as he typed something on his computer. “The point is, I got worried, and then I checked the news on France and I found this.” His image on the screen was replaced by news footage of a building on fire. The group let out a gasp. “That’s where Booker was living.” Copley’s face came back on screen.

“Casualties?” Andy asked automatically.

“I’m afraid so, yes.”

“Did he-?!”

Joe’s incredulous question was interrupted by Andy’s more forceful question. “It wasn’t him, was he?” She already knew the answer.

“No, I don’t think so,” Copley sighed, but quickly regained his composure. “Listen, whoever took Booker, either they wanted to be found, or they didn’t know very well what they were doing. They took his phone. I have tracked his phone and…” Copley again typed on his computer for a moment until the looked back at the camera. “They are on their way to England.”

Andy held a particular grudge for a country. The mention of it sent a chill down her body. “Copley, arrange everything. We are going,” Andy said.

Immediately after the call ended, Andy turned toward Nile. She looked nervous in a way Nile had never seen her before. There was a lot that Andy was clearly holding back. Finally, Andy asked, “Nile, is there a chance you’ve been seeing something… _different_ , in your dreams?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> please leave a comment and let me know what you think?
> 
> you can find me on tumblr @afterlaughy where i talk about andy/quynh as much as humanly possible


	2. Come home

“I saw her!” Nile exclaimed breathlessly as she was startled out of a new dream.

They were already in England. Andy was driving with Joe as copilot and Nicky and Nile in the back. At some point, Nile had drifted off. Soon enough her dreams had brought her the image of _Quynh_ again, but this time the woman was no longer at the bottom of the ocean, and she wasn’t alone either. She had Booker.

“Oh, _now_ you dream of her,” Andy mumbled as she continued to drive, “would’ve been really useful a day ago, huh?”

The others, however, ignored her. “What did you see, Nile?” Nicky asked the youngest one, as Joe fumbled around in the front seat in order to produce his notebook and a pencil.

Andy let them get entertained with plenty of questions and descriptions about Quynh, Booker, the water ahead of them, the burning building behind, and every little detail that Nile could remember and that Joe was passionately reproducing on paper. Then, Andy blurted out, “You guys know Copley sent us an address, right? You- I told you that, right?”

“It’s not the same, Andy,” Nicky shook his head gravely from the backseat.

“You’re not that special, Andy,” Nile added from beside him, “Booker texted me the address himself a minute ago.”

“ _What_?!” Andy exclaimed as she pulled on the breaks of the car, ignoring Nile’s shocked screams of protest.

“Andy?! The cars?!” Nile gestured wildly around at the cars speeding by and the angry honks that Andy’s little stunt earned from other cars.

“Is that a normal occurrence, Nile? Have you been texting Booker all this time?”

“Now that we’re discussing that,” Joe intervenes, “Andy, would you care to explain why did Copley say you asked him to keep in touch with Booker?”

“No,” was all they got as a response from Andy, who started the car again.

“Also, are you not wearing a seatbelt?” Nile took the opportunity to further distract Andy.

“Why would I- _Fuck_!” Andy groaned as she messed around with the wheel and the seatbelt for a moment or two until she was done and then exclaimed, “No more talking until we’re at the destination!”

Her order was listened, for a while. Until Nicky couldn’t help but ask, “Andy, do you want to talk about the fact that we’re about to see-”

“No.”

Joe also made an attempt, “Even though it’s been five-”

“No.”

“Should I-” Nile started to ask.

“No!” Andy hit the steering wheel with her open palm. “The three of you just really want to find out if you can annoy me to death?!”

Other than Joe chuckling as quietly as he possibly could, the car finally stayed silent for a few seconds. But Nile seriously, seriously couldn’t help herself. “Listen, I’m not sure if you’d even know, or if you’re joking, but that’s not a thing, you can’t die like that.”

* * *

At some point during that never boring car ride, Nicky had asked Andy if she had a plan. All he’d gotten as a response was “I’ll think of something.” But when they arrived at the dock where Booker’s phone had lead them, it was clear Andy hadn’t actually thought of something. She had thought a lot, it was all she’d had been doing since she got the mild suspicion about who had taken Booker. She could feel it in her bones. Even if she couldn’t dream her anymore like she once did, Andy swore she could feel Quynh’s presence back on the surface as well as she could feel her own heartbeat. Did she have a plan? Absolutely not. She had countless plans to ambush all kinds of enemies, but no amount of experience could have prepared her for this. Although she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t pictured their reunion millions of times throughout the centuries, she still couldn’t imagine what was about to happen.

Andy parked the car as close to the actual spot as possible. The area was desolated because the firefighters were tending to a nearby building on fire. Joe, Nicky, and Nile pulled out different weapons from the trunk of the car since they had no idea what to expect either. Andy had a gun in the back of her pants, but she didn’t even check it, and if she was holding her axe was mostly out of a natural reflex and even a comfort. She didn’t plan to fight, she just started walking.

She felt she was in a dream, just like that first day thousands of years ago. Was it an illusion? Was it really her, the woman she’d wanted for the better part of her entire and nearly endless life? Andy was in a daze, she wasn’t sure she was breathing, but she only knew she had to keep walking toward her. Finally, Quynh turned around, looked up and their eyes met. The intensity of that moment was nearly enough to knock down Andy, but still, she kept walking. And she would have walked straight into the bullet that Quynh had shot at her, if not for Nile, who had attentively been walking beside her and right on time blocked the bullet for Andy.

That shot finally shook Andy from her daze. She looked around quickly. Nile was in front of her, healing from the gunshot. Joe and Nicky were on their sides, pointing their guns at Quynh and looking incredibly pained to do so. Quynh looked… Andy couldn’t quite decipher that emotion, which added another layer of pain, considering she used to know Quynh and read her better than she knew herself and her own emotions. Booker was nowhere to be seen.

“Andromache,” Quynh smiled, maybe involuntarily, as she said the name, but then it looked like she made the effort to frown. “No longer fighting your own battles?”

As she spoke the question, Quynh shot again, and again Nile took the bullet, not without yelling, “Fuck! Stop doing that!”

“Why?” Quyn demanded with an ice-cold voice that made them all fall silent.

That was, until Booker finally made an appearance. He looked… really bad, everyone would have agreed on that. He was trying his best at lifting himself up from the water and into the docks. He was panting, coughing up water, and looking up at Quynh with terror in his eyes. But when he managed to look around and notice the presence of his friends there, his entire face brightened.

“Andy!” Booker exclaimed with a smile. He looked so happy, so relieved.

In an extremely quick and powerful move, Quynh kicked him with enough force to send him back into the water. The others were shocked into silence, and only Nile could whisper, “Damn,” as she stared at the spot where Booker had gone down.

“Give me one good reason not to throw all of you into the ocean!” Quynh turned toward them again. She had lowered her gun, but that didn’t make her look any less threatening.

Andy took a step forward, stepping away from Nile’s protection, and with only a slightly trembling voice she said, “Because then you would be _alone_.”

Looking at Quynh then was like seeing a big brick wall slowly breaking down, one by one. “I want _everyone_ to feel what I felt down there all those years,” she said. The words sent a chill down Andy’s body, because she had a feeling she wasn’t just talking about the five of them, but something much worse.

“That would be a waste of your time,” Andy replied, as she slowly took another step forward.

“Time has never been a problem for us, has it?”

“It is now,” Andy smiled sadly, and the other woman frowned.

“What do you mean?”

Before Andy could explain herself, Booker had emerged from the water again and, still panting, he said, “She’s no longer immortal.”

His humble participation in the conversation earned him another kick that sent them back into the water.

“Would you _please_ stop doing that?” Andy requested, and she received a small uncompromising smile from Quynh, before they really started to feel the weight of the man’s words.

“Is it true?” Quynh asked, her voice was now almost a whisper and Andy was now close enough to hear it well. Andy stayed quiet, but the answer was obvious in the tearful emotion of her blue eyes. That pair of eyes that with one look made Quynh feel everything she thought she’d never get to feel again. “I wanted…” Quynh chuckled darkly, “I wanted to kill you. I didn’t want you to _die_.”

At that moment, Quynh let her gun fall down to the ground, Andy took it as a small victory and took another step forward. “You don’t have to do all this,” Andy said softly, referring to the building on fire, the deaths, and the people drowning.

“ _How_ have you not lost all hope?” Quynh asked her. She meant that question more than it seemed.

There was a hopeful spark in Andy’s eyes, “Let me show you,” she said, “Come with me, _please_. Let me prove to you that life is still worth living, and people are worth fighting for. Come home, Quynh.”

Quynh was the quickest warrior Andy had ever seen in a fight. And not even five hundred years at the bottom of the ocean had messed with her talent. Quynh pulled her sword and swung it at Andy with a velocity that would have left baffled, and dead, any other person. Not Andy, though. Andy’s reflexes were the best in the world, and on top of that, she had always been in perfect synchrony with Quynh’s moves. Quynh had swung her sword at her, but she knew Andy would swiftly block the move with her own axe. Stuck there, in that position with their weapons against each other, it was just easier to be drawn together than to be pulled apart. It was just their only option, to lean in, to fall into each other, to let their lips finally meet after so many years apart. Never a kiss had felt so good, so healing.

When they finally pulled apart, they looked at each other and smiled. “I’ve missed you,” Andy said. She had never meant some words as much as those.

Quynh shyly returned the smile. Her eyes couldn’t hold the look in the other woman’s eyes for so long. She meant to look down, but something in Andy’s neck caught her attention. Her hand that had been in the back of Andy’s head traveled down to her chest to delicately touch the old necklace. It would have been impossible for Quynh to put into words what it meant to her to see Andy still wearing her necklace. It had been _thousands_ of years.

“You have a lot of making up to do for five hundred years,” Quynh finally said. Her voice was still cold, and she didn’t plan on easily giving up her rage, but she couldn’t deny to herself that after all this time, she didn’t want to put up a fight, not really. She wanted Andy, she wanted her family, she wanted to rest.

While the two women continued to hold each other and look at each other in the eyes with tenderness, passion, and love that had survived thousands of years, the rest of the group looked on.

“Is it always like that?” Nile asked, referring specifically to the fact that Quynh had technically tried to shoot Andy twice, and their weapons were still dangerously looming above them.

“The 1500s were… intense,” Joe answered, “I don’t think they have gotten over it.”

Nicky spoke up then, “Somebody should help Booker,” he said, pointing at the man that was lying on the ground, still coughing up water and breathing laboriously.

“Yes…” Joe replied, “Somebody should…”

Seeing as neither of them made a move to do something about it, Nile sighed, “Fine, I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> please leave a comment if you'd like
> 
> consider following me on tumblr @afterlaughy and talk to me about andy and quynh
> 
> i have the next chapter almost ready! should be up pretty soon :)


	3. Are you crying?

Back in the car, this time Joe was driving, with Nicky as copilot. On the backseat, Quynh was in the middle, with Andy and Nile blocking her exits. Booker was peacefully sleeping in the luckily large back of the car. Quynh was in the middle of explaining to them how all those centuries of pain and solitude had lead her to believe that humanity was doomed, people weren’t worth saving and, their gift of immortality was actually a curse, and one they should use to bring suffering to the world.

“It’s all _hopeless_ ,” Quynh finished with a tone that sounded frighteningly amused. Just then, she looked out the window and signaled to somebody outside, “I mean, Andromache, how could you excuse something like that?”

The car had just passed a man walking by wearing crocs. Andy frowned, “I admit, there’s no excuse.” When she turned back to Quynh, there was still hope in her eyes though, “But you just haven’t seen the best of it yet. Wait until you learn all the advances in medicine, technology, education. _I_ got to go to university a few times, you know?”

“You got kicked out of university a few times, you mean,” Joe said over his shoulder as he drove.

“Shut up,” Andy waved him off, “And there’s so much more. There’s… well…”

“We got married!” Joe stepped in again.

“ _What?_ ” Quynh asked.

“Yes we did, a few times, actually” Nicky added, as he turned around to look at Quynh and smile, “and legally.”

“What do you mean legally?”

“He means we are husbands, and many countries recognize our love. Our marvelous, ever-growing, love. Love that outshines the sun and continues to-”

While Joe kept talking for a minute or two, Quynh turned to Andy and whispered with a smug smile, “Many countries, but not all?”

“We are working on it,” Andy replied with an equally challenging smile. Then she looked serious again, “The world will never be perfect. That doesn’t mean it is not worth trying to improve, and fighting for it, for all the goodness in it.”

Andy’s words finally made Quynh thoughtful and silent. Around that time Joe finished his romantic speech.

“I would marry you a thousand times more,” Nicky replied to him.

“Oh, you will,” Joe chuckled. The intensity of his love brought tears to his eyes and he couldn’t contain his smile, he leaned toward Nicky and they met in the middle. They kissed for a moment until they started hearing the other cars honking at them.

“Guys! The road!” Nile exclaimed, nearly jumping from the seat.

“Alright, alright,” Joe chuckled and went back to driving. Soft smiles were still etched on his face and that of his eternal husband.

Nile slumped in her seat, but then she felt Quynh’s eyes on her. She turned to look at her and found an expression she couldn’t identify.

“You’re the new one,” Quynh said at least.

“Yeah,” Nile nodded, “My name is Nile.”

“That’s a beautiful name.”

“Oh! Um, thank you,” Nile sat taller after hearing that compliment, she smiled genuinely at the other woman, “Yours too.”

While they exchanged a smile, Andy looked on, feeling centuries of guilt and grief slowly fade to the background of this beautiful present before her eyes.

“I suppose you know how to work this thing then,” Quynh said, pulling out Booker’s cellphone from a pocket of her coat.

“Oh! You have his phone?” Nile picked it up and stared at it, “By the way, why did you let him text me? Did you _want_ to be found?”

“That is the only thing I’ve wanted for five hundred years,” Quynh replied, very seriously. They all stayed silent for a moment, quiet under the weight of those words. It was Quynh who broke the silence though. “And I honestly had no idea what that thing did.”

Her comment made all the others start laughing, even Quynh chuckled quietly. The moment felt very special, they could all feel it. That was the one joke that broke the ice, now it was just a matter of getting warmer. However, as the laughs slowly died down, they all noticed something that sounded a lot like a sob.

“Booker, are you crying?” Andy asked, shifting in her seat so she could look at the back.

“No, no,” Booker sniffled a few times, and cursed in French once as he moved around in the reduced space. “I’m okay, boss. I’m just, I’m happy to be back… I’m back, right?”

A tense silence fell over the car, but Andy finally sighed and answered, “Yes, I suppose you are.”

“He is?” Joe asked from his place behind the wheel. Only Nicky’s reassuring hand on his shoulder stopped him from putting even more of a fight. That, and the fact that his hurt at Booker’s betrayal had quickly been overshadowed by how deeply he missed his dear friend.

“Yes,” Andy repeated, “Someone once told me we are not meant to be alone. I think it’s about time I listened. I’m not going to let any of you feel alone ever again.”

All around, the group exchanged smiles with each other. Nile leaned forward and stared at Andy, “Please tell me it was a famous philosopher that said that,” she told her, “ _please_ , Andy, you have to tell me who said it.”

Andy only laughed in response, but stayed silent. When she had turned around to check on Booker she had draped one of her arms over the back of the seat, and then she just didn’t pull it away. So, it was just natural that slowly but surely Quynh leaned closer and closer until she was resting against her. “Andromache, can you tell me where we’re going?”

“A new friend invited us for dinner,” Andy replied, “I figured it’ll be nice to get all together and let someone else do the cooking.” She smirked, it would certainly be an interesting dinner at Copley’s house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!  
> this was a quick little update. i already started the next chapter and i can tell it will be quite longer  
> plus, expect more car rides because this one didn't get nearly as chaotic as it could have lol  
> please leave a comment if you like it!  
> and feel free to send requests or prompts of things you want to see in the next chapters on the comments or to my tumblr @afterlaughy


	4. It's Poisoned (pt. 1)

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Copley,” Quynh said, firmly shaking the hand of the man and looking around the house.

After the necessary introductions and pleasantries, the group stepped forward into Copley’s house and there wasn’t a single dull moment since then. After meeting Quynh, Copley leaned forward and whispered to Nile, the one he understood better for obvious reasons, “Is it just me or she has this… energy…” he helplessly waved his hand in front of him with a frightened look on his face.

“Intimidating, huh?” Nile chuckled, and followed the others inside. “Come on, James, we have a lot to talk about.”

“James! Your kitchen smells good,” Joe breathed in and moved towards the smell, “Would you mind if I take a look? It _could_ smell better.”

Nicky followed him, and trailing after them was Booker, looking as troubled as ever. “Nicky, please listen, I want to say I’m sorry,” He was still apologizing, and he had no idea when he’d be done.

“Isn’t an apology just another form of offense?” Nicky casually replied as he followed Joe into the kitchen.

“ _What_?” Booker whispered, not hiding his confusion as he trailed after his best friends, the friends he had betrayed not that long ago, but would forever regret doing so.

* * *

It went on for a while, the group scattered around the house, talking among themselves before dinner. On Copley’s office, Andy and Quynh were studying together the ever-growing board with the man’s research about the immortals’ lives and the consequences of their good actions. Andy had deliberately taken Quynh there to take a look and hopefully re-think her newfound belief that as immortals they must hurt humanity instead of saving it.

“I’m nowhere in here,” Quynh whispered after a few minutes of quiet observation.

“We made a few legends together,” Andy pointed out to a few myths that Copley had added to the board but were yet to be confirmed. “But his research has only covered less than two hundred years,” she explained.

“I’ve missed a lot,” Quynh sighed, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the pictures in front of her. Not only she was intrigued and marveled at the actual existence of photographs, of all these little Andys, Joes and Nickys in pieces of paper. Additionally, she had just stumbled across a feeling of pride for her friends and all the good they had done through the years. It went against what she insisted on believing now, but she had trouble denying her pride.

Andy couldn’t stop looking at her, she lowered her voice and said, “Don’t tell the others but, out of all the years I’ve lived, my favorite ones were spent with you.”

Up until that point, Andy had spent most of the time staring at Quynh, and Quynh had spent most of the time avoiding Andy’s eyes. Still, from staring at her profile, Andy could just catch sight of the little reactions to her words in Quynh’s face. The quick tremble of her lips, stubbornly holding back a smile, the cheeks that didn’t quite blush but eyes that crinkled slightly under a frown that was far from angry.

They were silent then. Andy could just feel her skin burn with the desire to just reach out, but she knew she had to be cautious. She knew Quynh was still strongly resistant to giving in to her after Andy had given up on her. It was a dangerous back on forth of heavy looks exchanged followed by ice-cold words and now, Andy fell at a loss for where exactly they stood with each other. As slowly as possible, delicately, and with her heart full of fear that was so unfamiliar to her, Andy reached out to hold Quynh’s hand. For a moment they were there, their fingers intertwining in familiar precision, but then Quynh sharply retreated her hand.

“What about him?” she cleared her throat and pointed to a random picture of Booker on the board in front of them.

“Yeah. Booker,” Andy sighed, swallowing down her hurt at the rejection. “He… let’s see, yeah that was… he was still new and just learning how it all worked.” Andy chuckled lightly, affectionately remembering the first missions that included Booker, all the times he had accidentally died.

Quynh hummed thoughtfully, “And then you just abandoned him, didn’t you? Just like me?”

“That’s completely different,” Andy replied vehemently. The only similitude in both cases was the fact that they had pained her an unspeakable amount. In different ways, they were two of the most painful things she’d ever done. “He-”

“I know,” Quynh interrupted her, “He told me himself. He was an absolute mess when I found him.”

Andy could be wrong, but she detected some hints of fondness, even protectiveness on Quynh’s tone. She had to fight hard to hide her smile. It didn’t matter how long it’d take her to gain Quynh’s trust again, to bring out the beautiful person and warrior that Andy had always known. At the very least, she knew the woman she loved was somewhere in there, still very much alive.

“Yes, I can imagine,” Andy nodded, “So you felt bad for him and decided to repeatedly throw him into the ocean, huh?”

That playful comment finally had Quynh turning to look at the other woman with a smirk on her face. “I was craving revenge,” Quynh said, “and you had just decided to go all _mortal_ on me.” Quynh’s little mischievous smirk was too much for Andy, it was everything she had been waiting for. She couldn’t hold back her own smile anymore. “Stop smiling at me like that,” Quynh reproached her with inescapable tenderness in all her seriousness when she noticed Andy’s bright and beautiful grin.

“I just can’t,” Andy replied

* * *

Meanwhile, Nile and Copley were standing by the stairs of the house, talking to each other in hushed tones.

“What do you mean _therapy_?”

“You know what I mean,” Nile rolled her eyes, “You’ve seen him, the man’s a mess.”

“Yeah…” Copley scratched the back of his head, “But how would that even work? I mean, Nile, he is two hundred years old. How do you explain that to a therapist? Without having him locked away for allegedly losing his mind.”

Nile waved him off, “We’ll figure something out, some fake identity or something. Aren’t you from the CIA?”

“Don’t you think that lying to his therapist would be counterproductive?”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Nile raised a questioning eyebrow.

The man in front of her shrugged, “I guess not. In fact, I only have an addition to suggest. AA meetings, maybe?”

“Yeah!” Nile pointed a finger at him, “Yes, definitely.” After a moment of silence she added, “Man, they need so much help. I swear if this work I’m sending _all_ of them to therapy.”

The two of them exchanged a laugh and really got to enjoy that short moment of levity. Still smiling, Copley couldn’t help but seize the moment and voice his concerns for the young woman, “What about you, are you holding up alright?” The truth was that Nile was an admirable young woman, and he knew to respect her and even fear her a little bit. She was a brave fighter and, well, also an immortal being. She might get to live thousands of years, but that was her future. At the moment, she was still just a twenty-seven-years-old woman dealing with extraordinary circumstances and who just had her life completely turned upside down. He couldn’t help but feel sympathetic and to some extent protective of her.

“Yeah,” Nile sighed gravely, her shoulders slumped a little bit, but when she looked up at Copley she did it with a smile. “I can’t even begin to explain what it is to give up my entire life, everything I knew. But, you know, it’s for a good cause. Hell, it’s for _all_ the good causes in the world. And they…” she trailed off, looking up the stairs at where her new family was hanging around, “They’ve made it easier. I… I kind of like it, being part of… this, all of it.”

“I’m happy for you, Nile, I mean it,” Copley smiled.

* * *

In the kitchen, Joe had made his way to messing with the food Copley had left cooking. He moved around confidently, even if he hadn’t been there that many times, he just knew he could improve the recipes a bit. He liked to help, but mostly he was just confident he could improve them. He worked with a relaxed smile that never faltered, not even though Booker was standing by, staring at him with pleading eyes.

“Come on, Joe, can I say I’m sorry?” Booker tried once more.

“I don’t know, Sébastien, can you?” Joe replied almost carelessly as he stirred the contents on a pot. He dismissed Booker’s exasperated sighed and grabbed a spoon. After picking a bit of the sauce he was working on, he offered it to the distressed man beside him, “Try this, will you?”

“Of course,” Booker readily answered and picked up the spoon. He tried to hold back a hopeful smile that this might mean something good, that this spoon was a sort of peace offering. “It’s great, Joe. Amazing really-”

“It’s poisoned.”

Joe’s words were delivered very seriously. By then all Booker could do was start coughing up and wearing a horrified expression on his face. That’s when Joe turned toward Nicky with a charming smile and said, “Darling, please, try this.”

Nicky complied happily, and after taking a taste from a spoon Joe fed him he smiled adoringly at the other man and proudly said, “Magnificent, as always.” Joe placed a hand on the side of his face and tenderly stroked his cheek with his thumb.

Booker, realizing that he hadn’t been poisoned, and instead was back to third-wheeling the most love-struck couple in history, decided to let out a heavy sigh, admit defeat and walk out of the kitchen.

Once he was out of hearing range, Nicky chuckled, staring at the playful smile on his husband’s face. Joe decided to play innocent, and went back to working on the stove. Nicky took advantage of it to step close to him, rest his chin on Joe’s shoulder and wrap both arms around him. “Are we being perhaps too harsh on him?”

“He’s been back for less than a day!” Joe defended himself, “I have my rights to a hundred years of being pissed off.”

Nicky hummed thoughtfully, then placed a kiss on Joe’s neck, “I give you a week.”

Joe openly laughed at that. “What about you?” he asked, craning his neck to try to look at the love of his life.

Nicky stepped back then. He stared at the door Booker had just walked through. Nicky was very thoughtful for a moment. He knew very well that Joe wouldn’t be able to stay genuinely angry at Booker for long. But personally, Nicky was different. In his mind, he was still balancing the meaning of Booker’s betrayal and his reasoning.

“Maybe two weeks,” Nicky replied solemnly at last, accentuating his words with a deep nod of his head. It was twice as long as his guess for Joe, that was true. But he had to admit, it wasn’t very long either.

* * *

Now alone in the hallway, Booker looked around for the actual owner of the house and casually exclaimed, “Hey, Copley! Do you have something to drink here?”

At that moment it was like an alarm had broke in the house. All the others heard him, they stopped whatever they were doing and exchanged alarmed looks with each other. They were all thinking the same thing. It was going to be a slightly more difficult dinner than originally planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> impulsively updating because i felt like it and i needed the validation :)
> 
> anyway, thanks everyone for reading and leaving comments!! 
> 
> let's see how much chaos i can conjure up for the actual dinner. 
> 
> if you guys have any ideas, requests, or just random prompts, you can leave them in the comments or message me on tumblr @afterlaughy


	5. It's Poisoned (pt. 2)

There were some logistical problems while setting up the table for dinner at Copley’s house. Firstly, there weren’t enough matching chairs, resulting in an eclectic mess. Joe was perched on top of a stool, looking considerably taller than the rest. He used the height advantage to look down at Booker with a frown. And Nicky used the opportunity to look up at Joe with adoration in his eyes. Copley was sitting on his office chair, trying to keep a hold of his patience even though Andy continued to sneakily kick his chair and send it wheeling away from the table.

Then there was the matter of seating placement, a delicate subject, considering the mild scent of betrayal and old grudges lingering in the air. Plus, the fact that they all would have knives in front of them. The result was nobody wanting to sit next to Booker. Nile and Copley had to sit on either side of him to try and keep him from getting stabbed. Also, everyone being too intimidated to sit beside Quynh. Except for Andy, who couldn’t find enough excuses to scoot her chair closer to the other women. However, with the way Quynh’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the knives, the others weren’t particularly keen on letting recently-mortal-Andy get so comfortable there. The whole affair played much like a trust exercise.

“I didn’t make that…” Copley pointed to a bowl in the middle of the table.

“It was nothing,” Joe waved him off, “but you’re welcome.”

After a few moments, after everyone got seated and their plates were full and they’d taken their first bites, Andy pointed at that same bowl, waving her fork at it. “It’s poisoned,” she spoke through a mouthful of food.

If the food didn’t kill Copley, there was a chance that the shock would take him. He, and Nile too since she still wasn’t used to these kinds of scares, started violently coughing on their food. “It’s a _joke_ , guys,” Booker tried to intervene.

“Oh?” Joe interrupted him with purposefully exaggerated dramatism, “So you think my food is a joke, Sebastien?”

“Have you forgotten your poisoned actions, Booker?” Nicky mumbled much calmly.

While all of that unfolded, it was only Nile that paid enough attention to notice the soft but admonishing, “Andromache,” that Quynh spoke when she heard the other woman. Was it because of the playful threat? Was it related to Andy’s table manners? Either way, the sheepish look on Andy’s face was priceless.

“Could someone tell me why are we drinking water?” Booker asked as soon as the initial commotion had settled.

For a moment, none of them knew what to say and half of them opted for taking long sips of their own glasses of water just then. Unsurprisingly, it was Nile the one to speak up. “Oh, you know, why not?” she started nervously, cleared her throat and decided to go for it, “Have you thought maybe you’ve been drinking too much, Booker?”

“ _Too much?_ ” he repeated, clearly confused, “Does it matter? It can’t kill me. Trust me, I’ve tried.” He chuckled darkly, and out of reflex took a sip of his drink. When he realized it was just water he grimaced.

Booker’s words caught Andy’s attention. She let out a chuckle of her own and slightly raised her glass in a toast. Had she tried it as well? Quynh silently asked herself. She was simply curious, not concerned, she tried to tell herself. Her fingers itching to reach out to Andromache wanted to strangle or stab, not to hold her hand and ask what did you _do_? At least, that’s what Quynh tried to tell herself. She tightened her hands into fists and Nile stared as sneakily as possible, just taking a mental note of it.

“It might not kill you, Booker,” Copley intervened, “but it certainly doesn’t help you live, does it?”

The two men exchanged a look. Up until this point, Booker had forgotten that mortal or not, Copley had recently lost his wife. He understood, not everything, but he understood better than Booker would have imagined at first.

“I don’t even drink that much…” Booker feebly tried to fight the attention.

“More than any army I’ve seen,” Andy said.

“I don’t know what’s in the, uh, tank of the, uh, vehicle that we took. But you talked about drinking it,” Quynh added. Her words nearly made Nile choke on her food again.

“That was a joke!”

“Oh, so now you think that the return of our dearest friend is a joke too?” Joe continued with his taunting.

Booker ignored him and pointed at Quynh, “And you stabbed the driver!”

“Only a little bit,” Quynh rolled her eyes.

“This is going well,” Andy laughed, a little too amused. She also took a sip of her drink and grimaced too as she tasted just water, further increasing Quynh’s curiosity, and maybe, just maybe, a little bit of concern.

“You know what?” Nile intervened again, “we can talk about it later okay?” She just stared as Booker simply nodded gravely, his eyes looking down sadly at the glass of water he held with both hands. “Maybe… then we can also talk about therapy, yes?”

“ _Therapy?!_ ”

This time, the question came from five of them. This prompted a long discussion through most of the meal. Everyone gave their particular definition of therapy, mostly about ancient health practices that sounded genuinely painful to Nile. Andy shared her concerns about spilling your deepest secrets to a complete stranger. Booker continued to look down sorrowfully at the glass of water in front of him. And Nile tried her best at explaining what therapy was nowadays. She also somehow had to explain what was serotonin, and also mental health.

“Is that a thing?” Booker asked, “Mental health?”

“Yeah,” Joe replied, “it’s something you _don’t_ have.”

Since Nile couldn’t exactly disagree on that statement, she went on to explain her theory that the only part of their bodies that doesn’t heal is their brains. It sounded better than saying it was their _hearts_.

Her theory, however, made Andy scoff, “None of me heals up anymore, so what’s the point?”

Before anyone could say anything else, Quynh looked at Andy and said, “You know, Andromache, I’m starting to think it’s interestingly convenient that you’re _suddenly_ mortal…”

Andy couldn’t really help herselt, “And your point is?” Her tone was the usual irritable one, and one of her eyebrows was raised angrily, until her entire face twisted to surprise. She was trying her hardest at being polite and mellow for Quynh’s sake, but her temper was never easy to hold back. Her surprise increased when she realized the other woman didn’t look offended or ready to fight her, but instead somehow pleased at the honest display of emotion.

While the two women’s staring contest continued, Booker was on the other side of the table cursing in french, and english too, “What the fuck?!” Some piece of food had just flown over and hit him in the head. It obviously came from Joe’s direction. Although Joe was doing a great job at keeping his cool, beside him, his husband was biting his lip to avoid bursting into laughter. 

Not too wrongly assuming that a stupidly silly food fight was about to break between a group of immortal warriors, Nile sighed and looked at Copley, “Wouldn’t you love for this to be poisoned?” She took a bite of her food, followed by a pleased hum, and decided to concentrate on it and nothing else.

The arguments and not so subtle attacks with bits of their food continued for a while. It had to stop because about at the same time that a speck of sauce ended up on Quynh’s red coat, Nicky said some baffling sentence along the lines of “the duality of this nourishment and annihilation.” They all were rendered silent, scared, confused, and finally still for a moment.

To his credit, it was Copley who broke the silence. “So, do you guys have any plans right now?” he asked, as he used a napkin to clean his face from a bit of food that was allegedly aimed at Booker, but he knew it was highly unlike for any of his company to miss a shot. He tried not to take it personally, after all, he probably deserved it.

Everyone immediately looked at Andy, “I don’t know, “ she mumbled, finishing her desert. It was very subtle, but it was there, the way Andy glanced and Quynh and then swallowed her food before she continued to talk. “I don’t think we are in shape to go on a mission right now, are we?”

“I will not be dragged into playing hero with you again, Andromache,” Quynh said very calmly.

“I know, I know,” Andy sighed. She looked around the table. Joe and Nicky, as per usual, weren’t looking at her, but at each other with the usual apprehension of getting ready to go to battle and risk losing each other, for a few seconds, or forever. Booker, well, Andy thought he really had to stop looking at that glass of water as if all his hopes and dreams had drowned there. Quynh only looked curious, and a little defiant. Lastly, Nile just stared at her expectantly. With another sigh, Andy finally said, “Well, I know Nile has been complaining nonstop about us moving around too much…”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Nile smiled.

“I suppose standing still for a bit won’t hurt anybody,” Andy shrugged, “I’m the only mortal now though, so it’s on you if anybody kills me for this shit.”

“Stability helps grounding the soul, Andy,” Nicky told her with a slight smile that she couldn’t help but return.

“I will make sure it’s safe,” Copley promised, “I will find you the perfect place.”

Andy nodded, “We’re going to need the perfect safe house.”

The words made Nile chuckle to herself and whisper, “What we need is a _home_.”

The group all exchanged smiles with each other, until Andy once again said, “Book, are you-”

“ _I’m fine!_ ” Booker exclaimed with a trembling voice and watery eyes, slamming his glass of water on the table for good measure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!
> 
> i appreciate all your comments :)
> 
> as always you can find me on tumblr @afterlaughy and you can send requests, prompts, or just yell at me about these immortal dorks


	6. Road Trip

To cruelly increase the sheer anxiety that Copley was dealing with, the group decided to spend the night at his house before taking a plane early the next morning that would take them to their new safehouse and hopefully stable home for a meaningful period of time. However, they couldn’t say they actually slept peacefully that night. Firstly, there was a member of their team who was still entertaining thoughts of getting revenge on all of England, and religion, and why not, all of _humanity_. Andy stayed up all night keeping an eye on Quynh. Partially to keep her from bailing on them and going out to cause chaos, but mostly because it had been five hundred years since she had gotten the pleasure to stare at the other woman.

Nile, too, was restless the entire night. She didn’t trust Quynh not to hurt Andy or anything else to go horribly wrong. Booker wasn’t the exception. It had been hundreds of years since he had gone so long without drinking, and he felt like he was losing his mind. Only Joe and Nicky, as soon as they were wrapped up in each other’s arms, got to sleep in complete comfort. But not without a gun under their pillows, and waking up periodically to check up on the others. Lastly, there was Copley, who nearly overdosed on caffeine in order to stay alert and alive throughout the night, and glued to his computer screen, making sure the team had a safe place to go to and absolutely everything in order to keep them extremely safe there.

Afterward, the trip to the safe house went _relatively_ smoothly. On the plane, they figured out they could lower their defenses, if only for a while. Nile, Booker and Nicky were deeply asleep pretty soon. Joe got to sleep too, as soon as he was done with a quick sketch of his husband asleep on the plane and the view from the window. Meanwhile, Andy and Quynh were still restless. Andy offered the other woman the window seat and Quynh proudly took it. However, she quickly realized she wasn’t all that prepared for everything that meant actually _flying_. 

They were mostly fearless warriors that had never hesitated to jump into the thousands of wars they fought together, but that didn’t mean Andy was clueless about the signs of a nervous Quynh. She took a leap of faith and offered Quynh her hand, and she was rewarded with a death grip that lasted all through takeoff, and then, when the plane was stable for a long time, Quynh relaxed her hold on her hand, but didn’t pull away. For most of the flight, she refused to look at the window, but when she did, her face brightened in a way that restored all of Andy’s hopes. 

Once they were back on land, in a “secret and secluded” region of Europe, they took turns driving to the safe house. This time, they had a truck. Which meant that Booker was exiled to the back of it at the beginning of the trip. Joe, Nicky, and Nile were on the back seat, enjoying, finally, a casual conversation about art history, lived or studied, that perhaps went on a little too passionately.

Andy was the first one to drive, while Quynh sat beside her, mostly ignoring the beautiful views around them, and focusing on the mesmerizing and, in her opinion, complicated process of driving. Maybe the mesmerizing part was all about Andy looking all relaxed, in control, and absurdly attractive while driving, and the complicated thing was not swooning at the woman she’d wanted to kill a couple of days ago. At one point, she asked Andy if one day she’d teach her how to drive and of course, the other woman readily agreed. Andy counted it as a victory. Quynh, even without meaning to, was thinking about staying, about a future where she didn’t kill Andy, where they were together still.

It was a long drive, that included many shifts in their positions. At one point, it was Booker’s turn to drive, and Quynh sat beside him, as they timidly asked each other small questions and got to know each other. It was strange, dreaming about each other in deep pain for two hundred years, and then one day just taking a _road trip_ together. Andy laid down on the backseat and tried to sleep, but she couldn’t avoid paying attention to the conversation unfolding in front of her, her heart feeling like it could burst out of her chest at any moment. In the back, Nile, Joe, and Nicky were mostly having fun waving at the other cars, while the youngest one taught them silly and enjoyable road trip games that the couple marveled at. It went on seamlessly except for the one time that Joe accidentally fell off the truck and they had to drive around to pick him up.

When Nile had a little too much third-wheeling, she left the immortal couple to cuddle in the back of the truck and exchange sweet words and even sweeter kisses for the rest of the trip. Nile drove for a while too, while Booker sat beside her and they talked pleasantly and joked around. Nile was the only driver that thought of putting on some music, resulting in Quynh’s hand reflexively grasping Andy’s thigh on the backseat as she asked through gritted teeth, “Andromache, what the _fuck_ is that noise?!” Andy held back her smile, “Modern music, supposedly,” she answered and placed a comforting hand on top of Quynh’s.

The trip included a couple of stops, of course. First, they needed a quick lunch, and since their new home was located near a rather small, rural town, they decided to stop at the last McDonald’s they would see on their way there. It was a whole event. Just after they walked in, Nile had to excuse herself to the bathroom, since she was reminded of a road trip of her childhood when she stopped at an identical fast food restaurant with her whole family. Andy gave her some time to herself, and then went looking for her. Their conversation was a mystery to the others, but it was enough for them to see that Nile came out of that bathroom laughing along with Andy.

Andy, however, swiveled to a state of utter disappointment when she came back to the table and discovered Joe had managed to manipulate their orders so Booker would only receive a happy meal. Then, as they ate their food, mostly they spent their time trying to convince Quynh that no, McDonald’s wasn’t a good reason to condemn humanity for their sins. They argued that _yes_ , maybe that little kid crying was a little bit annoying, and _yes_ , it was irritating to see a young couple glued to their phones during their entire date, but _maybe_ arson, a sword, or mass murder wasn’t the answer.

Personally, Nile had imagined that her immortal friends would be very against the entire concept of fast food. But then she realized, Booker didn’t care at all whatever kind of harm he did to his body, Joe and Nicky were happy to play with the fries as if they were tiny swords, and Andy, well, she just loved food too much to be selective about anything. While Andy devoured her burger, Quynh watched hers with distaste, doubting it was actually edible. When finally, she took a bite, she groaned, “I _hate_ it.” But she and Andy ended up ordering another one to share with each other.

Additional pit stops included, but weren’t limited to: the time Andy and Nile had to bodily drag Quynh away from a gas station’s bathroom because there wasn’t a reasonable way to argue that that filthy place wasn’t worth burning down to the ground. Also, when fate had it so that the group would cross paths with an unlucky robber that had attacked an elderly couple whose car had broken down. The poor man was close to fainting when a group of six strangers chased him with guns and somehow swords too. Then, when they drove past a particularly beautiful view, and Nile and Joe forced them to make a stop to enjoy it.

That particular stop lasted longer than intended, since Joe nearly got teary-eyed begging for a little more time so he could sketch the beautiful place on his notebook, sneaking a drawing of Nicky’s profile with it. Additionally, Nile dragged all of them into several pictures, portraits, couple pictures, and group pictures. Quynh looked deeply serious, and not so vaguely threatening in most of them. But during a group selfie, where absolutely _all_ of them missed the placement of the camera but Nile, the mess was hilarious enough to earn a beautiful smile from Quynh that was captured in one of the many pictures on Nile’s phone. When Andy saw the picture and almost started crying, Nile decided that not only all of this was worth it, but also that she had found the perfect Christmas gift for the ancient woman that probably hadn’t thought about the fact that you could print a picture.

And of course, a road trip wouldn’t be complete without a handful of accidents. Notably, there was the time that Quynh broke a window trying to open it because it was too hot inside the car, meaning that she was mad that, against her own will she had blushed when Andy took off her jean jacket and was left in a t-shirt that exposed her arms. Then, the small accident when Booker got distracted driving past a liquor store and the truck knocked down a road sign. And of course, the time Andy insisted it was her turn to travel on the back of the truck, but everyone deemed it unsafe, so Joe had to drive all alone while all the others sat in the back watching over Andy so their mortal leader didn’t get even remotely hurt.

It was safe to say that, when they finally parked the car in front of the safe house, they were all exhausted. The anticipation, and the bonding during the trip, had made it feel so that even at first sight of the place, they were all overcome with a feeling that they were finally coming _home_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: when i outlined this chapter they were meant to arrive at the safe house and even get all settled in, but then... i couldn't resist all the possibilities of road trip chaos!!
> 
> thank you soooo much everyone for reading and leaving sweet comments they seriously make me so happy :)
> 
> you can always find me on tumblr @afterlaughy and you're welcome to send request, prompts, or just yell at me lol


	7. Urgent Gardening and more

Their new safe house resembled the one in Goussainville, the first one Nile had visited. Leaving the car and walking toward it through the overgrown grass was a bittersweet feeling, reminding Nile of how this all started. However, now she wasn’t walking alone with Andy and still thinking about escaping the lunatic who kidnapped her from a military base in Afghanistan. She was walking with the entire team, the six of them moving toward that sincerely haunted-looking church and the seemingly-abandoned cottage that stood behind. Andy was leading them, as always, with Quynh following close behind, which was new. Then there were Joe and Nicky, holding hands to help each other tread the overgrown weeds, and to just hold each other’s hands. Followed by Nile and then Booker.

“Why is it always an abandoned church?” Nile asked, eyeing the building suspiciously.

“It’s the aesthetic,” Joe turned around and replied with a smile.

“For the fucking irony,” Andy called out from the front of the line.

“Ghosts,” Nicky nonchalantly mumbled.

From behind her Nile heard Booker’s aggravated sigh, “It’s literally just an abandoned place, it’s _safe_.”

“Shut up, Sebastien.”

After Joe’s comment, nobody said anything until they arrived at the house. For the moment, they skipped exploring the actual ominous-looking church. It was safe to say the house itself left a lot to be desired though. It was safe, that was for sure, as Andy had requested. But they hadn’t used that particular safe house in so long. From a distance, Copley could only do so much. He hired people that took care of filling up the kitchen with the basics, made sure water, electricity, and the rest worked decently enough, that it was liveable, and he even pulled some strings to get them a working television and, to Nile’s request, Wi-Fi. But other than that, the house was an absolute mess. It had only been cleaned enough to walk through the door and the path to the kitchen. It was a path, considering the rest of the floor was full of dead leaves and in some places actual grass growing from the cracks on the floor.

“I’m not saying I had high expectations on the twenty-first century, or the ones before, but…” Quynh mumbled, looking around with a grim expression as the rest of them.

Andy lightly kicked some of the leaves on the floor and grumbled, “Well, Copley is _not_ getting a raise for this.”

“We pay him?” Booker tilted his head.

“You guys even have money?” Nile added.

Nicky shrugged, “We have gold.”

“Hey, listen,” Joe decided to step up with a characteristic bright smile and excitement. He clapped his hands and looked around, seeing potential where the others saw chaos. “We can take this house as a bonding experience! A fun group activity, cleaning, remodeling, making this place ours.”

A few seconds of uncomfortable silence passed as most of the others debated why he would use fun _and_ cleaning in the same sentence. Nicky had to rise up to the occasion and stand up for his husband, “Joe is right. We should start by taking a look around, yes?”

With that simple task, it was easier to start. They parted ways, looking around the kitchen, the upstairs bedrooms, the couple of bathrooms, extra rooms, and even around the house. When they met up again at the center of the house, at the bottom of the stairs, they moved a little more confidently around, but Joe and Nicky looked a little uncomfortable.

“So…” Joe started to say, and nervously scratched his beard before blurting out the words, “There are only _four_ bedrooms.”

For another moment of silence, they all did the math in their heads. One room for the married couple. One room for their boss that intimidated almost all of them. One room for the old friend with a thirst for revenge that terrified most of them. One room for the youngest member of the team that deserved her privacy.

“I can take the couch,” Booker sighed, “or the floor.”

“Sounds good to me,” Joe clapped his hands and made a move to walk away before Nicky pulled him back.

“ _No one_ is sleeping on the floor,” Andy stated. “Quynh is staying with me. Right?”

Andy said that confidently, casually, as if nothing had changed since the thousands of years where it had been a tacit agreement that they’d be sharing a room, a bed, whatever surface they would have available for a night. She smiled at Quynh with that same easy confidence and tried to ignore the nervous knot on her throat product of the other woman’s extended silence. She also tried to ignore the way the others were holding their breaths, expecting the worst to happen.

Luckily, Quynh only met Andy’s eyes and without even the ghost of a smile replied, “We’ll see.” That was enough, for the moment.

“Great!” Joe, bless his heart, broke the uncomfortable moment again. “Then let’s unpack, shall we?” While they were walking out of the house to grab the bags they’d left in the car, he added, “I kindly volunteer to throw Booker’s bags down the river.

“There’s not even a river here!” Booker groaned.

“Actually there _is_ ,” Nicky chuckled in a way that worried Booker more than Joe’s harmless comments.

* * *

Soon enough, the six of them had scattered around the house, each one focused on something different. For example, Andy was focused on not saying the wrong thing to Quynh, and ended up not saying anything at all. While Quynh was focused on how this unfamiliar room, the _totally_ unplanned double bed, and the very roof above her head were making it hard for her to breathe. She was sitting in the bed and Andy was awkwardly standing a few feet away.

“I feel a little restless,” Quynh confessed after the silence had stretched on for too long. “Do you mind if we go outside for a while?”

“Let’s go,” Andy replied immediately, offering her hand, then ignoring the pain in her chest when the love of her life completely dismissed her open palm and started walking by herself.

Once outside, they walked in silence until, under the shade of a tree near to the house, Quynh started feeling like she could breathe again. Andy had noticed all the little things. At first, Quynh didn’t seem all that troubled by the house, but once they were alone in the bedroom, a much more reduced space, her shoulders tensed, her hands were balled into fists and her jaw clenched. But now, it was like a pressure had lifted off her shoulders, that was what prompted Andy to try to say something.

“Have you realized this is the first time we are truly alone?” she asked.

Reflexively, they both turned around to stare at the house. Other than seeing through a window how Nile messed with some wires and electronic devices that neither of them understood, they couldn’t even see the others. Quynh turned to look at Andy, there wasn’t a smile on her face, and the coldness stung, but nothing could really dim Andy’s absolute joy at the fact that they were standing there together.

“Can I ask you something?” Andy blurted out. But when she received an encouraging nod from Quynh, she couldn’t get the words out, she opened her mouth but she hesitated, already regretting saying something at all.

“Don’t even try that with me,” Quynh warned her, easily reading Andy’s expression to know she was about to change her mind, “Say what you meant to say, Andromache.”

“ _That_ ,” Andy quickly said before she could regret it even more. “You… you keep calling me Andromache, every time you talk to me.”

Quynh’s eyes widened slightly, thrown off by the unexpected comment, “I suppose no one calls you that anymore…”

“Rarely,” Andy shrugged, then she softly added, “I like it.”

Facing too many more emotions than she’d wanted to, Quynh had to look down before forcing herself to say the words that were dying to come out of her, the truth, “I had missed saying your name out loud.” She spoke that admission slowly, meaning every word.

Andy stepped closer, she had tightened her hands into fists to resist the urge to reach out and touch her. “I missed hearing it from you,” she confessed earnestly, “I missed _you_.”

Quynh sighed and closed her eyes tightly, “This is not what I had envisioned.”

This time, Andy couldn’t help herself. She simply couldn’t stand to see Quynh so troubled. An unimaginable time of torture was more than enough, and now Andy knew her purpose was to make sure Quynh wouldn’t, for a moment, have to suffer anymore. “Talk to me,” she whispered, pleadingly, and risked crossing any and all lines, but with one hand she reached out to hold Quynh’s hand, her fingers softly uncurling the other one’s fist, as her thumb softly stroked her knuckles. “ _Please_ ,” she added.

“I feel like I am still drowning,” Quynh confessed, now looking directly into Andy’s eyes, her hold on her hand tightening, “I am constantly expecting death. And I feel… like I have to kill you, like I have to drag you back down to the ocean with me. I feel like the only way I could breathe comfortably again is to take all this pain inside me and throw it on everyone else. Make the rest of the world suffer as much as I did.”

While Andy’s heart was breaking, she continued to desperately grasp onto hope. If destiny had brought them together again, there was no way they couldn’t find a way to make something good out of it, to find happiness together. She shook her head softly. “No, there _has_ to be another way,” Andy whispered, and then, without being sure what she was begging for, she added, “Please.” Maybe asking her to believe, asking her to stay, to give her a chance, to not kill her.

“But _how?!_ ” Quynh insisted, tugging on Andy’s hand. The truth was she didn’t want this. She didn’t want to wish millions of excruciating deaths on every human on Earth. But she couldn’t picture an alternative. She couldn’t. But then, she felt Andy pull her hand away from hers, just to immediately wrap her arms around her.

Andy pulled Quynh to her, held her tightly against her chest, and held her breath in nervous anticipation. Truth was, when they first embraced each other after their reunion, emotions, and adrenaline had been running high, and the boundaries were blurry. But since then, they each regarded the other cautiously, hesitantly, two magnets fighting the inevitable attraction. Andy feared Quynh would fight back, resist the embrace, but it was the best she could do, the only way she knew how to express what she meant.

Effectively, at first, Quynh tensed, her arms still at her sides. How could Andy reach out to her, someone that just admitted to wishing suffering and death upon her? Then again, immortal or not, Andy had never feared death. Perhaps she would welcome it, if it came from Quynh. But, in that embrace, Quynh realized that’s not what she wanted at all. So, she let her body relax, she leaned into Andy’s hold, she wrapped her own arms around the other woman and she held on tightly.

When it was clear Quynh wanted this as much as she did, Andy sighed. Then she started whispering, close to Quynh’s ear, all the ways in which she was sorry, she apologized in dozens of dead languages, in words that were only theirs she promised her a brighter future, a safe place for each other, and five hundred years worth of apologies.

They held each other almost desperately, in the way they wished they could have held each other the day they were separated. Surrounded by Andy’s arms, Quynh would start to believe that there was something beyond her rage. She had no idea what to do with the pain, but she could believe there was something else inside her. There was the ghost of who she used to be, and there was a desperate wish to return to it, a hunger to love and be loved, to give in and break down and trust her love to put the pieces back together. She started to believe that these ashes of herself could start a fire that if fed with enough love would grow brighter and more powerful than her rage. For the first time since coming out of the ocean, Quynh allowed herself to feel _hope_.

* * *

Technically speaking, Nile knew she had better things to do. She had to unpack, she had to make sure Andy was still alive, Booker still sober, and more. But she could seriously not resist the urgency to get the internet all set up and ready to use. It was easier said than done though. She knew what she was doing, of course. Obviously she was better equipped for it than anybody else there, but she was genuinely good with this kind of stuff. However, even for an expert, dealing with these kinds of things was always an annoyance. Why so many wires? What did that light mean again? Was it supposed to be blinking like that? Was it safe to give the password to the rest of the team? So many questions, and she was just a twenty-seven year old immortal. Luckily for her, she had a friend out there that insisted he was only a call away.

“Hey Copley,” Nile greeted him with a tired smile. She was sitting on the window sill, after deciding the floor was disgusting.

“Hello, Nile. How’s the new house?” Copley smiled at her.

“How do _you_ think?” she threw back at him with a playful eyebrow raised.

After they exchanged a laugh, Copley raised his hands in surrender. “I did my best with what I had. Now, how’s the internet?” he asked, and after the young woman confirmed that it worked nicely, he hesitantly added, “The fake profiles you asked for are ready, I’ll just send you the details. Though I have to say, I’m not sure stalking your old family and friends is a wise move.”

Nile waved him off, “Leave that for the therapist, Copley. Let me enjoy a few days of unhealthy coping mechanisms like the rest of my new family.” She rolled her eyes playfully, thinking fondly of the people that would share a home with her from now on. “Is it still all set for next week?” she asked.

“As long as you convince them, yes,” he chuckled, “How’s that going?”

“I’m waiting for the right time,” Nile mumbled a reply. She had looked down, staring at her phone and hesitating over the social media apps that she knew she couldn’t touch yet. Her mind was elsewhere, it wasn’t hard to tell. “You know, I’ve been thinking- Nevermind, I better-” but before she got to dismiss her thoughts, tell herself to wait for the therapist, the man on her screen kindly encouraged her to talk. “I just… Lately, I’ve been thinking of the last time I got to see my family, you know?” Nile said, and she surprised Copley with the small smile that took over her face. “It’s bittersweet. It hurts to remember that I said I’d come back but… I got to say _goodbye_. I was leaving home for God knows how long, there was really no guarantee that I’d be back. And I really got to say goodbye to them. I’m feeling thankful about that little fact, I guess.”

For a few moments, Copley had no idea what to say. But it wasn’t difficult to figure out that the best thing was to say something he was certain of. “You are… the strongest person I’ve met, Nile.” She grinned in response, and he made sure to add, only a bit playfully, “The others are extremely lucky to have you with them.”

* * *

Joe and Nicky were roaming the upper floor of the safe house, staring out every window and holding hands, mainly to keep dragging the other one from one room to another. Including the best room of the house, that they quietly claimed by dropping their bags on the bed. The little act got Nicky to start giggling, which prompted Joe to try to shush him but ended up chuckling himself, and the more they tried to get each other to stop laughing, it only got worse. Eventually, they moved to the open window to take a deep breath of fresh air and look at the grounds around the house. It wasn’t a bad sight at all.

“It needs some work, doesn’t it?” Nicky wondered out loud, his arms resting on the window sill and Joe hugging him from behind.

“We could start a garden, what do you think?”

“It’s comforting and a humbling experience for the spirit to watch something grow,” Nicky nodded resolutely.

Joe chuckled behind him. “It’s good for the stomach and the palate to have fresh species,” He said, in a playful Italian accent that he often used to lovingly make fun of his husband. Laughing again, Joe jumped out of reach of the elbow that Nicky tried to hit him with. “Come on,” he added, grabbing onto Nicky’s hand again, “There’s more to see. Lot’s to do around here. It definitely needs some painting.”

“You could start a mural in one of the walls,” Nicky suggested, his eyes sparkling with the idea.

Joe stopped in his tracks to hold Nicky’s face in his hands, “My love, you’re a _genius_!” he exclaimed full of excitement before quickly kissing the man he loved so much.

When Joe and Nicky descended the stairs once again, they were surprised by the sound of Booker’s loud groan of exasperation.

“Is there seriously _nothing_ to drink here?!”

“There’s water,” Joe said, walking into the kitchen, “Have you ever tried it?”

While Booker sighed gravely and rolled his eyes, Nicky stepped up to suggest, “Maybe we should get started. There’s some urgent gardening to do.”

“Maybe not now!” Nile called out from her place perched on a window of the living room. When she got the attention of the other she nodded her head to the outside of the house and explained, “The ladies are having a _moment_ outside.”

To their credit, they hesitated for a full second, before Joe, Nicky, and Booker pretty much ran to the window, to pile around Nile and stare at the scene in the distance. Andy and Quynh had stopped desperately hugging each other, and pulled away enough to stare at each other’s faces. Quynh still had both arms loosely wrapped around Andy’s waist, while Andy looked down to her with adoration, holding Quynh’s face in her hands with a delicacy that she’d thought she’d forgotten. They were both smiling, whispering to each other, finally enjoying an easy conversation, a moment of blissful peace… that was aggressively broken when they heard an exaggeratedly loud “Aww!!” coming from one of the windows of the house.

Back in the house, they all waved or blew kisses at Andy while she flipped them off. Still laughing, even without putting it into words, they all felt that some of the tension was finally leaving them, and in turn, they were starting to feel genuine excitement, and a wave of energy to do something about their new home. They had no idea where to start, except for Nicky, who broke the silence saying, “I must insist on the urgent gardening though. Either way, I didn’t mean the actual garden.”

When Booker and Nile sent questioning glances his way, it was Joe who explained, “Oh, the house is in such a bad state there might be a little tree growing in one of the bathrooms.” They all really had a lot of work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this was sort of a weird chapter to write, a little difficult for some reason? it did Not come out exactly as I had planned it. and i think i got a little caught up with the andy/quynh angst for a moment there lol but then i had to deal with a massive case of writers block!! though apparently my solution for writers block is to end up writing twice as much as planned lmao
> 
> anyway... i hope you liked it!! thank you so so much for reading and for everyone leaving comments i appreciate it So much ❤
> 
> i'm excited to begin the next chapters where i Think there will be less angst, more fluff/humor, more family interactions!
> 
> as always you can find me on tumblr @afterlaughy where you can send me prompts any time :)
> 
> thanks for reading!!


	8. All the hard work they are not doing

It was time to get to work. Usually, that meant killing and maybe dying a couple of times. Instead, the six of them were trying to figure out a way to clean up their new house. However, with the way Andy was starting at the place, anybody would have assumed that some murder might take place in the process. The first step was for everyone to put on their most comfortable clothes. This included a colorful array of worn t-shirts, tank tops, and also Andy losing her breath when Quynh had to wear a t-shirt of hers. Then, they met in the living room of the house, ready to tackle this task as a team.

“So… how do we start?” Nile asked the group, “Clearly we should take all this trash out. Should we split into pairs? Use a broom? Do we have a leaf blower thing or something?”

Although half of the group was tempted to ask what even a leaf blower was, only Quynh spoke up.

“Flood the entire place,” Quynh said, slowly, deliberately. Her voice was so cold, and the meaning behind her words so frightening, nobody dared answer.

Except for Nicky, who didn’t have time to connect the dots between the suggestion and Quynh’s trauma and instead took it as a very serious suggestion and said, “ _Yes_.” He nodded confidently, already fully on board with the idea.

“Maybe not?” Nile cleared her throat, “But I guess using a hose and washing this place is not that bad of a starting point, really.”

“I pass,” Quynh rolled her eyes and looked away, nonchalantly, but quickly so they wouldn’t pick up on the spark of fear in her eyes at the mention of having something to do with water.

Andy noticed, though. And she felt completely helpless without an alternative to offer. Now, maybe the others couldn’t read Quynh as easily as Andy. But they could pick up on Andy’s signs and connect the dots.

Joe perked up, “Someone should do something about the wild weeds that are threatening to take over the house, you know?”

That immediately got the women’s attention. “You mean… with an axe?” Andy tilted her head questioningly.

“A sword?” Quynh joined in with an inquiring eyebrow arched.

“A hatchet?” Andy suggested next, as if they were gambling for something much bigger than gardening duties.

“ _Sure!_ ” Nile interrupted them before they continued to list weapons instead of gardening tools. “Go on,” she ushered them outside, “Unleash that repressed feral energy.” She watched the two women walk away but before they got too far Nile yelled as an afterthought, “Andy! Careful with the insects and stuff. That’d be a dumb way to go!”

After receiving the corresponding insult from Andy, the four remaining warriors got to work. Cleaning the house… it was an interesting experience. Nile was forced to lead them on how to proceed. And even then it wasn’t like she could keep an eye on everybody. Nicky just couldn’t get the measurements right for cleaning products. The result was a section of the floor ending up of a completely different shade than the rest, and a corner of the kitchen being filled with bubbles no matter how much water they threw at it.

On the other hand, Joe worked mostly diligently, except when it was his turn to use the hose and at every chance he had he aimed it at Booker, who looked like an angry and sad cat after falling into a bathtub. Speaking of him, Booker was a really interesting part of the process. At times he was his usual self, and he was _terrible_ at cleaning, sneakily moving away from an unfinished job until Nile threatened him with a broom. But then it was like he very suddenly remembered something about _maybe_ shooting Andy, nearly killing her, and being responsible for Joe and Nicky being tortured in a lab. This friendly reminder inspired him to work three times harder, which wasn’t much different but it was enough to make some actual progress in the cleaning of the house.

Then, when it was time to move upstairs and all the soap, water, and laughter made the three men repeatedly fall down the stairs, or push each other down, so much that Nile started suspecting it was purposefully, she decided she deserved a break. She served herself a cold glass of water and then walked outside. Nile rested her back against one of the walls of her house and watched as her last hope on commitment and responsibility died. Andy and Quynh had managed to clear only a patch of the weeds surrounding the house before they somehow ended up in a sparring match, looking way too comfortable to be fighting each other with hatchets. Nile felt a pang of worry at the sight, but as much as she tried to, she couldn’t find a single trace of actual ill will in Quynh’s expression. In fact, both women looked utterly delighted.

“Are you just going to stand there, Nile?” Andy asked, her movements not faltering for even a second.

“Yeah,” Nile replied, “Don’t mind me I’m just admiring all the hard work you two are _not_ doing.”

Andy and Quynh laughed in unison before with a final move Andy knocked the other woman’s weapon to the ground. Breathing heavily but smiling in a way that at least Nile had never seen, Quynh said, “I let you win.”

“Of course,” Andy replied, surprising herself with the realization that maybe it was true.

Whenever they used to train together, it could extend for hours since they perfectly matched each other’s skills. And, even then, it was rare for the two of them to come out completely unscathed. The sum of these facts brought on a new realization that Quynh had a perfectly good opportunity to hurt her, even kill her, and she didn’t take it. While Andy worked on wrapping her mind around those thoughts, Quynh was dealing with her own side of the situation.

She couldn’t lie to herself and say the thought of wounding Andy didn’t cross her mind while they were fighting, it was constantly going in and out of her thoughts. However, the feeling of slipping into the old habit, the old routine, the familiar dynamic, it all felt _so_ wonderful that there was nothing in the world that could have stopped Quynh from enjoying it as the most incredible miracle of her life. It was like, even if just for a few moments, she could pretend they were back in the past, in a timeline without all her pain.

“Are you two going to stand there staring into each other’s eyes the entire day or…” Nile interrupted their moment with a laugh, “I could suggest going back to work.”

Andy returned her laugh and turned to stare at the young woman. “Don’t you want to try?” she asked, offering Nile the hatchet in her hand.

“With you?”

Andy smirked, “We already know I can easily kick your ass, Freeman.”

“With _me_ ,” Quynh added. She had picked up her own weapon.

Nile hoped that her hesitation wouldn’t show actual fear. “Yeah, I don’t think-” she tried to say.

“Don’t be afraid,” Quynh interrupted her, walking slowly toward her. “Are you a fifteenth-century English priest?”

The question threw Nile off, “No?” she replied.

“Then _maybe_ I don’t want to kill you.”

There was something hard to describe in Quynh’s smile. There was definitely something mischievous there, but it felt like it fell more on the playful side of things, instead of genuine malice. In the short time Nile had been part of the team Any had made sure to begin training her on different styles, so she wasn’t completely unprepared for this. Besides, if it would have been an actual bad idea Andy would have stopped her instead of practically shoving a hatchet in her hands… right?

For a while, it was just that. Quynh was going relatively easy on Nile, but keeping her on her toes and teaching her so much by just fighting with her. Nile tried to keep her focus even when her mind couldn’t ignore how this moment felt somehow meaningful, and important. Andy studied them, and relentlessly teased them both to hide the fact that she was overcome with extreme fondness with the sight in front of her. Meanwhile, behind her, Joe, Nicky, and Booker might have been creating more disaster than they were cleaning, but it was still some progress. They all were making more progress than they could imagine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we can have a cute little sunday update, as a treat
> 
> i hope you guys liked this chapter!! i'm personally happy with it. this is kind of exactly where i wanted to go with this fic. fluff, humor, a hint of angsty quynh but mostly her just getting better and healing, found family feels, all of it.
> 
> comments are really appreciated :)
> 
> you can find me on tumblr @afterlaughy where you can send all the andy x quynh prompts you want
> 
> thanks for reading!


	9. Allergies, spiders, beds, and bets

Their first night in the new safe house started rather interestingly. It turned out that the cleaning products they used gave Andy allergies. The first time she sneezed everyone gave a little jump. The second time, they all looked at her really concerned. But the third, fourth, and following times their collective concern had escalated enough that, well, at the end Andy ended up demanding them to leave her alone and threatening them all with a knife that nobody even knew she had with her.

Then, when it was time to sleep, they all took their different paths.

Joe and Nicky, dressed in their softest, most comfortable clothes for bed, were almost ready. Except that they realized they were not alone in the room.

“Joe, look!” Nicky exclaimed. He had stopped his husband from moving forward with an arm to his chest, and with his other arm, he pointed at the arguably big spider that was walking beside their bed.

“Huh, hello there,” Joe mumbled, taking a look at the little animal, “Excuse me, but this our room, ma’am.”

“I am going to kill her,” Nicky solemnly announced, but was stopped from taking a step forward by Joe’s hand on his arm.

“No!” Joe exclaimed, “It’s alright, we’ll be perfectly- _Ah!_ ”

“Oh my God, it _moved!_ ” 

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” Joe soothed him with a palm on his chest and then suggested, “I’m sure we can handle a spider, yes? We can just take it outside.”

“That’s a great idea,” Nicky smiled brightly and for a moment they just stood there, lost in each other’s eyes, holding each other affectionately. Until the couple jumped even closer together after the spider had made a quick move in their direction. “ _Careful_ ,” Nicky threatened the spider with an accusatory finger.

* * *

“Are you sure this is fine?” Andy asked Quynh. They were sharing a bed and Andy hated how tense she felt. It felt completely unnatural for them to be so cautious with each other, but the last thing she wanted was to upset the love of her life. So, as much as it pained her, Andy suggested, “I could leave, if you wanted me to…”

“No… don’t… fuck,” Quynh had her eyes closed and she kept tossing around in bed. Even though Andy was expecting the worst, eventually Quynh stood still and sighed, “Oh, God, these beds are _so_ comfortable. When did that happen?” The clear delight in Quynh’s tone was enough to make them both chuckle. Pleasantly surprised by how extremely comforting the mattress, sheets, pillows, and blankets were, when Quynh turned to finally look at Andy, her eyes were as soft as they had been since their reunion.

“Andromache,” Quynh whispered in the near darkness of their room, “I am angry, furious, really. With humanity, with _you_ , with the world. But, I will _not_ deny myself the things I want. And I want to enjoy every little luxury, and comfort, the joy that I can find and…”

Although she couldn’t keep going, Andy didn’t hesitate on adding the last thing obviously missing on the list, “Love?” How badly she wanted to openly give Quynh all her love, and not be denied.

But Quynh couldn’t agree or argue with her. Her features hardened, and she looked away. She wasn’t quite ready yet. “I _know_ I deserve all of it,” she said at last.

“Yes, you absolutely do,” Andy whispered with a smile. For the first time, she regretted that they chose to hide in a humble and unassuming place. She felt a sudden urge to sell all the gold she’s kept through thousands of years and give Quynh all the best luxuries the modern world could offer. Was that what Quynh really meant, though? Before Andy could keep up with that train of thought, Quynh spoke up again.

“You deserve it too, you know?” she said. At first, Andy frowned because she had lost track of the conversation and couldn’t remember what they were talking about. Comfort, joy, _love_. That was it. But then she continued to frown, because she couldn’t agree.

“That’s arguable,” Andy lightheartedly protested, effortlessly taking on the role of her harshest judge.

Quynh couldn’t hold back a laugh, “Maybe.” She continued to turn over in bed until she was lying on her stomach and she sighed contentedly. “Ask me in the morning,” she mumbled.

Andy smiled, now that the other woman had closed her eyes and couldn’t see the unrestrained joy on her face. “In the morning you might hate me even more,” Andy complained, but there was a playfulness in her tone, and she found the courage to scoot closer to the woman she loved.

“Exactly,” Quynh tried to manage another chuckle, but ended up yawing, “Go to sleep!”

* * *

Meanwhile, still in the living room, Nile was taking advantage of a few minutes of peacefulness and solitude while staying awake. She knew that as soon as her body found her bed she’d pass out. Mostly, she was just scrolling through her phone, following the “safety measures” that Copley had recommended. She felt… strangely at home there. But was it really strange? They would probably have to get a new one, but that couch was comfortable enough for the moment. The night was quiet, save for the murmurs of the movements of the couples upstairs and the calming noises of the animals and the rustling leaves outside. Nile felt safe, she had her guard down, and maybe she hadn’t moved from that spot on the couch for a while because she was determined to fully enjoy that feeling.

Her moment, however, was briefly interrupted when Booker came out of the bathroom and collapsed on the other end of the couch. He had a new glass of water, of which he was drinking plenty of, and he frowned at it, “It’s not the same,” he grumbled.

“It doesn’t have to be _just_ water, you know?” Nile raised a questioning eyebrow at him. “You could try drinking tea, or we could buy some fruits tomorrow.”

“Fruits?” Booker scrunched up his face, “What for?”

Nile only chuckled at his comment. But after another moment of silence studying the man in front of her, she said, “You know, I don’t think I’ve had a chance to say I’m really glad you’re back.”

Her smile immediately brought out one in Booker’s face. “You are?” he asked, barely pretending he was being nonchalant about it.

“Of course,” Nile said, sincerely, but then with a touch of humor she added, “I don’t think I could have dealt by myself with the romantic-comedy and the greek tragedy that are upstairs just now.”

The two of them shared a laughed together, but they barely got time to enjoy the lighthearted moment. Right on time, they heard a loud crash coming from the upper floor of the house.

“So… Quynh just tried to kill Andy, or Joe and Nicky did something dumb,” Booker scratched his beard and looked up thoughtfully, before smiling at Nile again, “Want to make a bet?”

Nile laughed again, but agreed. She really felt at home there, and she didn’t think it was a strange feeling at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kind of happy with this chapter, I hope you liked it too :)
> 
> Comments are always aprpeciated!
> 
> Thanks so much everyone for reading!


	10. To go grocery shopping, and live to tell the tale

The group had to take a considerably long drive to get to an actually nice place where they could buy a good amount of supplies for their new home. It wasn’t that they were picky, far from it. But there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that it would be a pity that after five hundred years they would hold back certain comforts of this century to their friend. Quynh was, to say the least, skeptical. But they were all slowly but surely letting down their defenses.

When they arrived at the store, between parking and getting everyone out of the car, Quynh saw a small family enter the store, through sliding doors, of course.

A small frown appeared on her face and she said, “That’s new.”

Joe walked up to her. He was cautious, of course, but actually, he was the one that was least mistrustful of Quynh. He was moved by his heart and as soon as he saw his friend, his sister, after missing her for so long. It would have been so easy for him to jump right back where they left off and wrap her in a bear hug. Of course, he didn’t get to do that, which was painful. But he stood by his belief that this was the woman they knew and loved and he wouldn’t stand back for long. Andy knew Quynh too much, and knew what her trauma could make of her. Nile didn’t know her enough. Nicky was loving, but he was extremely prudent and careful. Booker… well she had kidnapped and drowned him a couple of times.

“It’s not the same as hunting for food, huh?” Joe smiled easily at Quynh, and her icy look didn’t discourage him, “I hope you’ll like it though.”

“I know _you_ must like it,” Quynh replied, her tone wasn’t free from judgment, “You weren’t any good at hunting, Andromache and I did all the job!”

Joe’s laughter was half out of genuine amusement at the somewhat true accusation, and half simple joy at seeing Quynh smile playfully at him. “Come on,” he risked placing the palm of his hand on her back to lead her into the store. Although she tensed, she didn’t pull away, in fact, it could have been wishful thinking on Joe’s part, but by the time they entered the place he felt she had leaned into his touch, moved even closer to him.

Followed after the two of them were Andy and Nile, though it seemed Andy wasn’t aware of the fact since she nearly knocked Nile down.

“Hey!” Watch it, old lady,” Nile steadied them both and shook her head at the other woman, “Andy, are you okay?”

“Of course,” she frowned and looked at Nile, but the glance was ridiculously brief and her head immediately snapped back to the store. The sliding doors closed behind Quynh and Joe, and Andy felt a rising panic.

“Andy!” Nile exclaimed, grabbing on to Andy’s arms to keep her from literally running into the store. She chuckled lightly and when Andy finally looked at her she said, “You have to let her breathe sometime, you know?”

“Sure,” Andy crossed her arms, waited maybe ten seconds, and added, “Can we go in now?”

Nile laughed wholeheartedly, “Are you going to be sickeningly in love now too?” Nile asked, “I didn’t expect you to be that type.”

In response, Andy only shrugged, but the way she smiled and the tension left her shoulders the minute they walked into the store, that spoke more than any words she could have used. They found Joe and Quynh standing by one of the store's fridges, laughing as Joe tried and failed to explain how it worked and why on earth was there was ice in there. Nile’s teasing remark to Andy died on her lips when she saw the way Quynh’s head whipped around when she felt their presence, immediate dread took over her features and just as easily dissolved into relief that transcended beyond any ordinary delight when her eyes found Andy. Those two loved each other so much, and they so deserved to revel in it, that Nile figured she could afford to miss one opportunity to make fun of Andy.

“Hey, kid,” Andy broke out of her lovesick spell for a moment to pass Nile a piece of paper with a messy list of priority groceries they must get. “Can you…” Andy waved the paper in between them, and sighed, “You’re the only I trust with this, Nile.”

“That’s an unfair responsibility Andy,” Nile shook her head and looked down to take a look at the list. She knew she was probably the only one that could focus at the moment at least on making sure they had the bare necessities, but she was not going to let this become a habit. “Why the fuck do you guys need so many tomatoes? Andy?” Nile looked up just to find out that only Andy had left her talking to herself, but she had made a beeline to a nearby aisle. “Andy that jar of Nutella wouldn’t even fit in the car!”

Meanwhile, Booker and Nicky had also made their way to the store. And it wasn’t going well.

“Nicky, are you seriously going to follow me around the store the entire time?” Booker turned to look at him exasperatedly.

“You are _not_ allowed to bring any alcohol back to the house, Sebastien,” Nicky replied, his voice emotionless.

“So I should drink it all here? Alright,” Booker laughed, and that laughter died as it met the expressionless face of his friend. “Come on, Nicky, it’s a joke.”

“I’ll be watching you,” Nicky made one last remark and started walking away, granting him a hint of privacy.

Booker scoffed, “Honored and annoyed that you care,” he mumbled.

But of course, he heard Nicky call out from the neighboring aisle, “I heard that!”

On the other side of the supermarket, Quynh was having an overall really strange experience.

She went from, “These are some oddly beautiful vegetables,” to, “What on Earth is that?”, passing by, “Have I gone mad? I am _certain_ this thing didn’t exist,” and including, “Why are tiny portions of everything in these absurd little bags!” ending with, “Andromache, that _color_ should _not_ be edible.”

Andy stared at her the entire time. There was an unavoidable layer of pain attached to the knowledge of why exactly Quynh had missed out on all these things. “Come on, let me show you my favorite part,” Andy smiled. She reached out, tentatively enough, and gingerly picked Quynh’s hand in hers.

As they walked straight toward the aisle where the sweet snacks were kept, Andy feared Quynh would flinch away from the touch, but she was pleasantly surprised to feel the entire opposite thing. Quynh interlocked their fingers, and tightened her hold.

“Andromache, I am not an expert but this looks like food for children,” Quynh mentioned as she studied the colorful packages of Andy’s favorite snacks.

Andy scoffed in response, “You’ll like it, trust me.”

Soon enough, Nile caught up with them. “Hey, guys- Andy that’s too much!” Nile gestured at the exaggerated amount of candy they had picked up. “Did you pick five of everything or something?!”

“Quynh has to try everything, but I… also want them, okay?” Andy waved it off, “How’s the list? Where are the others?”

Nile shrugged, “We were pretty much done. Nicky helped a lot. Then Joe distracted him a lot.”

Right on time, they heard Joe and Nicky approach them. If Nicky was blushing and Joe was smiling a little too much, none of them made any comment.

“We’re here, we’re here,” Joe grinned, “Are we done?”

“Hopefully,” Quynh said, before taking a bit of a red apple.

Everyone looked curiously at her, but before any of them tried to say something, one of the employees of the place entered the aisle and pointed at Quynh. “Excuse me, ma’am, you can’t eat that-”

“What did you just say to my wife?” Andy seethed, stepping forward, she towered over the young man. 

It didn’t help that Joe and Nicky also frowned at him, but the worst part was Quynh actually smiling and making a move to reach into her red coat.

“Guys-” Nile tried to intervene

But Booker arrived just in time, “Hey, are we leaving yet?”

“Is he…” the worker of the store pointed at the barely disguised bottle of whiskey that Booker had put on the waist of his pants.

“Book,” Andy sighed, and closed her eyes.

Nicky nodded, “I will kill him.” he stated very seriously.

“ _What?!_ ”

“It's okay!” Nile calmed the poor guy that was just doing his job, “We’re just gonna pay for it. All of it. Well, no, not _that_ ,” she nodded toward Booker.

“Actually, can we leave _him_ here?” Joe added.

As the group walked to the cashier, Nile asked, her voice slightly concerned, “Wait, guys, who brought the money?”

“I have money,” Booker supplied.

“Authentic money?”

“I don’t have money,” he looked down.

Quynh reached into her coat once more, “I have two wallets…”

“Yours?”

“Obviously not.”

Nile sighed, and desperately turned to Joe and Nicky, “Guys? Please? Do you have money?”

“They only accept from this century, right?” Joe scratched his beard, “And no gold, are we completely sure about that?” Meanwhile, Nicky reached into his pockets, only to pull out a few bullet casings, a rock or two, and what could have been just a bunch of dirt.

“Nile, calm down,” Andy put a hand on her shoulder, “This was fun to watch and everything but,” she raised her hand, holding a credit card between two fingers, “I’m still here. I got this.”

Nile sent a grateful smile her way. There was a deeper meaning in her words. And Nile held on to the reassuring part of it. It looked like everything was going to be fine, like they wouldn’t be kicked out of the store entirely. But of course, they didn’t walk away without Quynh’s exclaiming, “ _How_ is there money on that silly little card?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! here it is!
> 
> I hope you guys liked it. I wasn't feeling very confident on this chapter but there were some funny parts that I was kind of proud of :D i hope to update sooner this time.
> 
> Thanks so much everyone for reading! Comments are always appreciated.


	11. It's getting better, it's getting messier

The group wasn't done shopping for their new home just yet. There were quite a few modulations they needed to take care of, which brought them to a hardware store, which brought them to an uneasy argument that included Quynh exclaiming, "Well if you're scared I'll go on a killing spree of revenge against humanity, you _shouldn't_ have brought me to a weapons' store!" and ended with a deeply disturbed shop owner.

Then, not only Nile tried and sort of failed at explaining that those were construction tools and not torture devices, but she _also_ had to stop Andy from buying yet another small axe, which was going against everything she was trying to explain.

In the end, Nile and the boys had to take care of buying everything they needed to keep their house from falling down on its foundations and to make it look not so much like a haunted house. Meanwhile, Andy and Quynh waited by the car, surely getting a headstart on all the snacks that Andy had bought at the previous store, pretty much enough to fill a small piñata.

“Oh, this is so strange…” Quynh mumbled while eating a chocolate bar, her fingers delicately covering her mouth. “It’s… unnatural…” she closed her eyes and moaned, “How is it so delicious?!”

Andy chuckled, already finishing her own snack. “I knew you’d like it,” she grinned.

After taking a deep breath to regain her composure, Quynh shook her head, “You were already terrible with food back then, even when so much of it was _awful_ ,” she laughed.

For a moment it looked like Quynh wanted to say something else, but even though she opened her mouth, her words died on her throat. When she met Andy’s eyes she saw her own grief reflected back to her. With comments like those, it was plainly impossible to avoid thinking of _why_ exactly Quynh had missed on so much. Swallowing the knot on her throat and determined to bring back the smile on the face she loved so much, Andy showed her one more brightly colored bag of candy. “There’s something called gummies, and I have a feeling they’ll disturb you at first but you’ll love them too,” she winked at Quynh.

* * *

After some more driving around, they finally found a large store that could offer them a good place to find all the furniture they could need. Nile was prepared to take the lead again. Just because they were isolating themselves from society a little bit didn’t mean they had to live without style. And, judging by the “bucket of swords by the door” style of her new family, none of them really had strong feelings about interior design.

Considering Andy’s new status, assigned by Nile, of “lovesick fool”, Nile was doing the best of a position of leadership and, instead of doing all the work, she gave out instructions. She sent Booker to find the most basic things for the bathrooms, shelves, gardening, and things alike. She trusted Joe and Nicky to not do too awfully with kitchen and living room stuff. Personally, she was content finding the best things in the store that the others probably wouldn’t even think they needed, and things for her own room, which she was excited to make the most out of. And she could always buy the rest online, surely Copley could arrange that.

Because she was a kind leader also, she let Andy and Quynh explore and freely roam the place, as long as they didn’t break anything, or harm anyone.

“Are you comfortable?” Andy chuckled. She was standing by a tall pile of mattresses, on top of which was spread out the woman she loved, face down, and having the time of her life. Of course, after Andy had nearly threatened the poor worker of the store that attempted to, in Andy’s words, “disturb my _wife’s_ comfort?!”

“I didn’t know science would be able to do _this!_ ” Quynh marveled, her voice muffled by pressing her face to the softness below.

Andy hummed thoughtfully and, with enough playfulness in her voice she said, “I know. It kind of makes you _not_ wish to go for bloody revenge on all of humanity huh?”

Quynh groaned, “Those sinners… I guess, maybe not all of humanity. But I still have my eye on Catholicism-”

That was the moment when Quynh miscalculated and as she turned around on top of the many mattresses to look at Andy, and she ended up falling off there. Now, falling off a tall pile of mattresses in a store could drastically ruin your moment of swearing revenge on the entire religion that threw you to the ocean five hundred years ago. _But_ , falling right into the strong arms of your six-thousand-years-old lover that you know for sure would be there to catch you in every possible situation except for that one time that scarred you forever… well, Quynh wasn’t sure what any of that meant. She had _completely_ lost her train of thought the moment her eyes met Andy’s.

“Are you okay?” Andy tilted her head, and tightened her hold on the woman in her arms. She was carrying her bridal style with perfect ease, but she knew she probably should hesitate, probably should put her down. “Um, do you- should I… Do you want to get back on there or…” Andy wondered, her frowning a little.

“Actually…” Quynh playfully raised her eyebrows, “I think I’m good here.” She watched, and felt, as Andy’s body shook with laughter. As a smile started to break on her own face, Quynh added, “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m just testing to see if you’re still as strong as I remember you, being mortal now.” But of course, her arms naturally finding their place wrapped around Andy’s neck told a different story.

Andy’s pride and her delight at Quynh’s good disposition pushed her to ignore the mention of her mortality. “Oh I can be here all day,” she smirked down at the love of her life in her arms. Though sadly, they were suddenly interrupted.

“Andy,” Nile sighed, arriving beside them with Booker and Nicky right behind her. Her sigh was in exactly that tone that Andy was getting familiar with, the tone of “I’m only twenty-seven years old, _how_ and _why_ the fuck am I babysitting literally ancient warriors.” But when she saw Andy carrying Quynh she raised an eyebrow, “Wait, are you guys okay?”

“Perfectly fine, thank you,” Quynh nodded once.

“What’s wrong? Where’s Joe?” Andy asked immediately, falling into a protective stance as a natural reflex. Even if she knew they were just in a furniture store and the worst thing that could happen-

“He’s lost,” Nile shrugged, clearly exasperated, “We can’t find him.”

Ah, _that_.

Andy smiled, “I see,” and just a little louder she added, “Is that why Joe’s boyfriend looks so worried?”

“He’s not my boyfriend, Andy!” Joe shouted from somewhere behind them, “Come on, boss, you know that!” He quickly made his way toward them, even climbing over a sort of cabinet. “What’s that disrespect, huh? Do you hear me say Quynh’s just your crush? This man is…”

As Joe jumped right into one more passionate speech about Nicky, Andy leaned in and whispered to Quynh, “Should I put you down now?”

“No,” Quynh replied, and Andy felt troubled by how thrilled she felt to see her smile, and how worrying it was that the smile was full of mischief.

“Oh, alright,” Andy cleared her throat and shifted her hold on Quynh a little bit, “Hey, guys, I think we can leave now, right? Yeah, let’s… let’s go, it’s late.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for reading! i love all the comments with all my heart ❤


	12. Quynh: finding happiness out of spite

Quynh was laying on her stomach, slowly coming out of her slumber. "Andromache, are you staring at me as I sleep?" she mumbled, her face pressed against the pillow. She received a light chuckle in response, but then she frowned lightly, noticing something else other than the familiar warmth and scent of the woman she knew better than herself. "And what is _that_ smell?" Quynh asked as a curious frown took place on her face.

"Good morning, love," Andy took a sip of her coffee and then left the cup on the unopened box of the bedside table they bought the previous day. "You might have missed breakfast."

"I did?" Quynh yawned, turning to lay on her back. She stretched as much as she could, rubbed her eyes with her hands and basked in the pleasant feeling of a good night's sleep beside Andy. _Finally_. 

"Not a morning person anymore, I see," Andy was having trouble holding back her smile. She leaned down and kissed Quynh's forehead, receiving a pleased sigh in response. Then she also moved down in bed to lay beside the other woman, propped on an elbow to look down at the love of her life.

"I'm cold," was all of Quynh's response. She had closed her eyes again and kept turning in bed, now laying on her side and facing Andy.

In the short time since they reunited, Andy had put all her thoughts and focus on Quynh, using everything she knew about her in order to understand this slightly different, broken, angry, vulnerable version. It was clear, pretty much an understatement, to say that Quynh was dealing with conflicting emotions. She wanted to be angry, she was hungry for revenge, but unsure on her target. However, one of Andy's discoveries was in relation to the contrast of those emotions. The moments when Quynh wasn't furious about her unfair imprisonment, but just devastated about her tragic experience. The moments when her eyes were sad, when her hands instinctively reached out to Andy, when she instinctively leaned in closer to Joe or Nicky. It looked like she didn't want to allow herself to break down, but there were glimpses of cracks on her facade when she yearned for comfort. And, more precisely, some moments when she permitted that comfort to reach her. That was one of Andy's discoveries. Maybe during the day Quynh would appear cold and distant and her mind would fill with thoughts of revenge. But, in the slow and warm mornings, and at night when they were tired and soft, she wouldn't flinch at all when Andy easily slipped them back to the tender intimacy of centuries ago, to the soft kisses, the terms of endearment, the closeness of their bodies.

Andy moved one hand to put one stray strand of hair away from Quynh's forehead to behind her ear. She gently smoothed her black hair, and because her fingers couldn't keep away, she caressed Quynh's cheek with the back of a finger, moving toward her lips. "You're pouting," Andy said, playfully poking Quynh's bottom lip with her thumb.

Quynh chuckled, and finally opened her eyes to look up at Andy. She stared silently for a few moments. "I was going to ask you to stop looking at me like _that_ ," she said, easily noticing the adoring look in the other woman's eyes, "But I happen to vividly remember you looking just like that ever since I met you." Quynh raised a playful eyebrow. She caught Andy's hand in her own and with their fingers interlocked left their hands laying on the bed between them. When she noticed Andy's expression change because of her teasing, she added, "Oh, now _you_ are the one pouting, my heart. Makes me wonder, do the new kids know yet how soft you are?"

Andy scoffed. "I am anything but. I have a reputation now, you know."

"You?" Quynh hummed curiously, "You with your weakness for sweets, your laughter like honey, and a heart big enough to fit humanity for thousands of years? Sure thing." Instead of replying at all, Andy only leaned in to kiss Quynh's lips this time, their laughs meeting in perfect harmony in the middle. Eventually, Quynh pulled away and let herself fall back on her back in bed. There was a satisfied smile on her lips, but it didn't last long, it turned bittersweet as she said, "I like it when we do this," she said, and before Andy could do anything but tilt her head in silent questioning, Quynh added, "Pretend that I- that it's all fine."

"It _will_ be," Andy promised with the exact same fierce conviction in which she had always promised it'd be the two of them together forever, but since that time they were pulled apart all those years ago, her conviction had cracked, and if she didn't believe in her power to keep her promises, there was little hope she could convince the other woman. A realization that frightened Andy more than anything.

"I'm still scared," Quynh whispered, "That nothing will soothe all the rage, or erase the pain."

"No, no," Andy followed swiftly and lay down, she brought her arms around her lover, pulling her close, holding her tightly, willing their love to be enough. After a few minutes, when Andy started to fear that Quynh would fall asleep again, and when the noises coming from all over the house started to get louder, Andy pulled back to look at Quynh, happy to see her face calm and relaxed again. "The _only_ thing you have to fear," Andy said, "is Nile Freeman when she comes knocking on our door telling us to go help around the house."

Quynh laughed wholeheartedly. "Andromache! Are the others working on the house while you and I just lay here?" she asked.

" _You_ deserved to sleep, and I told you _I_ have a reputation," Andy matched Quynh's smile with one of her own.

* * *

A knock on her door pulled Nile from her job painting her room. On her doorway she found Nicky standing there, holding a tray with one last glass of lemonade.

"Hey Nicky!" she smiled, walking up to him and accepting the refreshing drink, "God, thank you _so_ much, I needed this."

"Hey, Nile, great job on your room," Nicky replied, taking a good look at the room that was coming together way faster and nicer than the rest of the house.

"Well, I did most of the job on groceries, so it's only fair the rest of you to put this house together," she laughed, "How's it going, by the way?"

"Would you like to take a look?" Nicky asked her, amused enough to worry the young woman a little.

The house needed a lot of work. All the walls needed painting, the stairs needed repair, the windows were broken and the doors crooked, there were leaks in the ceiling, the plumbing mostly worked, but the bathrooms needed some work, and the kitchen nearly needed a full remodeling. Plus, there was the whole business of putting together the furniture they bought the previous day.

Nile and Nicky's tour of the house started on the upstairs hallway. Quynh was content enough painting her and Andy's room after the two of them started way later than the rest. She was thoughtful enough to warn them against checking in on Andy, who was working on the upstairs bathroom. Passing by, Nile and Nicky heard only a loud splashing of water, and Andy curse "Motherfucker!" at the sink probably.

Making their way down the stairs, they found Booker sadly sitting down in the living room floor, surrounded by a random array of pieces of furniture, waiting to be assembled.

"Book... are you crying?" Nile inquired carefully.

"I am fine!" Booker replied, crumbling a page of instruction on his hand, "But why the fuck do we need a shelf?! This is a nightmare!"

Walking out of the house, Nile and Nicky found Joe. The two men had done a good job at painting most of the outside walls of the house. But, seeing Joe working shirtless because of the sunny day, Nile easily connected the dots on why Nicky had suddenly decided to get himself a cold drink. At least he had been kind enough to make drinks for all of them.

"Nile! What do you say? Do you like it?" Joe asked with a bright smile.

The youngest member of the group walked forward, curious as to how much could she liked a white wall. But then…

"Did you paint a mural on the side of our house?!" she exclaimed, her voice breaking into an incredulous laugh, "Joe that's... that looks extremely good? That's like absurdly good." She had been on the verge of asking how much time he spent on that instead of doing some serious work, but the quality of that scenery was impressive enough to be more than worth it.

"Thank you so much, Nile," Joe winked and happily got back to work on his masterpiece, while Nicky happily got back to watching him work.

* * *

The rest of the day passed in a similar manner. The entire group moving up and down the house, helping each other in all kinds of tasks, cursing in many languages, determined to make this forgotten place a home, even if they had to do it by sheer brute force.

There were Andy and Nicky, working together in the kitchen, with Andy being way too happy to use a hammer, and Nicky constantly cursing in Italian. They might have had to sacrifice an entire cabinet, but the result was a comfortably large and functional space where to cook meals for six. There were Joe and Booker, fixing the roof of the house which, of course, resulted in Booker falling off the roof. After making sure the other one was properly healing, Joe laughed hysterically for a few moments. Booker ended up admitting it had been a genuine accident on his part, and at least now the roof was in good condition. Then there was Nile, trying to fix some of the doors and windows with Quynh’s help. There was a first part, of the younger one teaching the other about modern tools, but looking at Quynh handling a nail gun was slightly frightening, though Andy used an entirely different adjective. Then the second part, when Quynh was the one to teach Nile a few tricks on how to handle traditional tools, not just for killing someone, but to easily fix a door's hinges.

As the afternoon progressed, they continued working, being unsurprisingly competent for some things, being hilariously messy at others. The group, Andy and Booke in particular, proved to be great at breaking down things, old cabinets, and things alike. While Nile was the most proficient at handling power tools to actually put things together. Joe had mostly finished his beautiful mural, plus a few little attractive patterns that he scattered around the house, but the painting of the house was pretty much done. That day the others found out about Nicky's passion and almost blind faith in adhesive tape, which for a long time afterward they would find everywhere in the house. In cracked windows, in cracks on the walls, often in coffee cups and occasionally in his own clothes.

A few last incidents included the group coming together to convince Booker that he shouldn't just sleep on a mattress on the floor and a bed frame was needed. Also, Nile asking about the weirder places where the six of them had lived, and every moment of shock she experienced hearing the stories. And finally, five of them trying to act discreetly in their extreme worry every time Andy picked up a power tool. Until the almost inevitable moment when she got a cut on her finger, prompting everyone to run to her and suggest everything from the hospital to cutting the finger off. Andy cursed and complained about the attention and the pain that didn't immediately cease, but calmed down when Nile put a bandaid on it and stopped the bleeding. Then, of course, Andy grinned happily when Quynh kissed her finger and playfully told her to "stop crying about it."

The day was coming to an end, everyone finishing up their tasks, mostly proud of the way their house was coming together, looking better and stronger each passing day. The finishing touches included Nicky starting to cook dinner, Joe getting the trash out, which included his attempt at dragging Booker outside, after the Frenchman somehow fell asleep on the stairs of the house. Nile had claimed the first turn to take a warm shower and finally relaxed from all the work of the day. However, she was just leaving the bathroom to go to her room, when she heard the loudest crash she'd heard that day, which was a big accomplishment really. She ran to Andy and Quynh's room, and heard three set of footsteps coming up behind her.

The sight she found was... well, she couldn't completely say if she was surprised or not.

"Andy... what the fuck?" Nile asked, mostly just confused at the sudden hole on the wall of the room.

Quynh was sitting on the edge of their bed, happily staring at Andy, who was holding a hammer with one hand, while with the other she rubbed the back of her neck, looking like she was second-guessing her decision to put a hole in their bedroom wall.

“It’s her fault,” Andy helplessly defended herself, waving a hand at Quynh. “ _Someone_ wanted another window.”

Quynh rolled her eyes, “Well, excuse me for some rightfully acquired sense of… what did you call it? Claustrophobia?”

Every time made a reference to her trauma, all the other immediately tensed, scared of saying the wrong thing, to hurt her, or anger her. This case wasn’t any different. And usually, they were right to worry, it was true that with enough motivation Quynh could have snapped at any of them. But maybe, just maybe, soon they could start to worry less and less. This time, however, they missed the wink that Quynh sent Andy’s way along with her words. It was all a fascinating mix of a genuine need for more air caused by her traumatic experience, that now met her playful nature and her inability to miss an opportunity to tease the love of her life, and their friends too.

“Uh, guys, I don’t think you should sleep on a room that looks like a cannonball just passed through,” Nile said.

Andy took a look at her recent creation and shook her head, “This looks nothing like cannonball damage, Nile.”

“It’s too late to make a whole new window,” Booker sighed.

His complaint actually brought an idea to Joe’s mind. “If it’s unsafe to sleep in this room for now, why don’t we all crash in the living room. That’s a sleepover, right Nile?” He said it mostly for Quynh, since Joe was adamant in approaching her with his entire heart open. But it was true that the five of them were used to being sleeping as close to each other as possible, for safety reasons, that were pretty much just the safe as comfort reasons.

While everyone else started to hesitantly nod and agree to the suggestion, Nicky chuckled, “You haven’t know claustrophobia until Booker tries to cuddle you in his sleep.”

Everyone laughed. Quynh had on the tip of her tongue another comment that walked the file line between teasing and threatening, about how she knew that sort of terror better than any of them. But they were laughing. Andy had that gorgeous smile that showed her white teeth. Nile, the youngest, looked even younger and brighter than ever. Joe and Nicky were holding each other, their bodies rocking with laughter. Even Booker was trying to hide his amusement and embarrassment behind a hand on his face. Her family was laughing, and Quynh wanted to laugh along with them. She wanted to move on from the pain. And she’d fight heaven, hell, the ocean, and herself if necessary, but she would have the damned happiness she deserved. So, she laughed along with everyone else, and together they got ready for a sleepover in their living room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!!
> 
> I hope you liked this chapter. The scene of Andy breaking the bedroom's wall just because her wife wanted an extra window has been in my mind from the beginning, pretty much one of the reasons I even started this fic lol
> 
> Comments are always appreciated, and you can find me on tumblr @afterlaughy as always :D


	13. Moments that matter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! it's been so long i'm so sorry!! but here's a little update. i promise to update again soon-ish :D

“Andromache, you’re awake… right?” Quynh whispered, hesitantly breaking the silence of the night. For centuries she had known exactly how to tell everything Andy was feeling at any given time, including when she had fallen asleep. She was confident the love of her life couldn’t have changed too much in the time they spent apart, but it was still one of her fears. There was no need to worry though.

Andy cracked open one eye and smiled up at her. “Yes, I am. Are you okay?” she replied in a matching whisper.

Quynh sighed and rolled on her back. She thought about it for a moment. The sleepover, as Nile had called it, had been a complete success. They all had brought pillows and blankets to the living room and they had stayed up late talking. Quynh mostly listened, still getting used to the feeling of being back with her family, still getting used to having a family.

Andy, Nicky and Joe were familiar, but they had changed, that was undeniable, just like the world around them. It was the same planet, but all those new cities and all the technology made parts of it new and unrecognizable for Quynh. That’s how she felt about her family. She also had to get to know Booker and Nile, which was going well, and she enjoyed listening to them talk. But the silence was also dangerous. If she stayed quiet or still for too long she would start feeling this was a dream, an illusion, all over again. She’d need to say something, or move closer to Andy on the couch, do anything to remind her that she was alive.

Then it was time to sleep. She’d taken one of the couches and no one objected, Nile had claimed the other one, Booker fell asleep uncomfortably on a chair and Joe and Nicky somewhere on the floor. Andy had also taken the floor, right in front of Quynh. Close enough to touch. Separate enough to be cautious still. Quynh knew she appreciated Andy’s caution and respect toward her. But she also knew that the stillness of the night, the quiet, laying alone on her back, it was too much, too awful to bear on her own.

“Can we go out for a moment?” Quynh said.

Andy didn’t have to give her an answer, she immediately, as careful as she could to not wake up the others, stood up from the floor and offered Quynh her hand. Slowly, hands linked together, the two women made their way across the living room and through the door of the house.

After taking a deep breath and looking up at the clear sky above them, Quynh smiled. “That’s better,” she said, glancing at Andy before tugging her forward until they reached a particularly soft patch of grass where they sat down.

Andy, immediately, put on a concerned frown. “Should I have brought a pillow, or blankets? I should-”

“Andromache,” Quynh stopped her with a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It’s fine.” She smiled and, after a moment, her smile took on a playful tilt. “Have you become so fragile you can’t stand a night outside… Andromache?” She kept herself from saying “my heart” a term that had only slipped out once or twice since she was back. They both hurt, knowing she was holding back.

Still, there was some lighthearted comfort in the moment that Andy would have done anything to keep. “Immortal or not, this is nothing to me,” she scoffed proudly, and even lightly pushed Quynh’s shoulder with her own.

After laughing and returning the light shove, Quynh looked at Andy’s eyes and let herself get lost in them. “My heart,” she whispered, her voice breaking just slightly, and she leaned in, and kissed Andy.

The touch of their lips almost made Andy gasp. It was far from the first kiss they shared since Quynh’s return, but in that moment, as she closed her eyes and kissed her back, Andy vowed she’d never get used to her kisses again, would never take them for granted, would never treat as anything less than the best experience in her life. 

“Quynh,” Andy sighed when she pulled back from the kiss.

They rested their foreheads together and Quynh whispered, “I like moments like this. Just you and me, outside, it feels… it feels like it always did. It feels normal. It’s easy to pretend it is.”

Andy tensed as she heard the words, knowing she should say something but clueless as to what the right words might be. However, before she could figure it out, it seemed Quynh could read her mind as well as she always did. She sighed and moved her head to rest on Andy’s shoulder, hiding her face against her neck and moving closer.

“I know, I know pretending is not enough,” Quynh said, she sounded scared, sad, but confident in her words, “I will try again tomorrow. But let me have this moment.”

Andy immediately relaxed. She understood how it would be a long and complicated journey for Quynh to feel back to normal, whatever that would mean. Quynh could take all the time she needed, but Andy wasn’t sure she could offer that much time anymore. If the only thing she could offer were these moments of pretending, these precious moments where it was just the two of them and everything felt alright, she could do the best she could with that.

“Quynh,” Andy called her. She moved her hand so she could delicately push her lover’s chin so she’d look back up at her and when their eyes met, Andy smiled, “I love you.”

Quynh giggled lightly through the kiss, “I love you too,” she managed to reply between kisses.

“Is your plan to stay here all night?” Andy asked her, momentarily leaving the other woman’s lips in exchange for kissing her cheek, the tip of her nose, her forehead.

A new small laugh escaped Quynh. This feeling, warm, bright, joyful feeling that she’d missed so much for so long. It felt indescribably good to be in Andy’s arms, to be on the receiving end of this woman's unending love. Quynh almost didn’t know what to do with such a feeling.

“Yes,” she found Andy’s lips again, “Any complaints?”

“Absolutely not,” Andy kissed her one more time before moving to Quynh’s neck, letting her enjoy it one moment before pulling her down to the ground with her. Her heart overflowing with happiness as she heard Quynh laugh wholeheartedly and get comfortable on top of her, resuming the kisses for the rest of the night. That moment was only theirs, the rest of the world could wait. 


	14. Therapy and archery

“Good morning, Miss Freeman.”

“Hey Copley,” Nile smiled at her phone screen, “Missing us already? You’re like an overprotective mom.”

“Just checking up on you guys, it’s the least I can do,” he tried to defend himself while the young woman gave him a virtual tour of the house, “The place is looking much better.”

“Yeah! I mean, it’s not falling on our heads, it’s clean, and Andy hasn’t spontaneously made any new windows so, that’s good,” she laughed, “Here’s Joe working on a new mural, because obviously, that’s a priority. Joe, say hi!”

“Hello James!” Joe immediately waved, but as he started to walk closer for what surely would be a too-long conversation, Nile walked away.

“Okay, bye Joe!” she hurried toward the kitchen, “Here’s Nicky making dinner. Hey! Oh- Sorry Nicky! He just cut himself so let’s move on.”

Copley chuckled at the grimace on Nile’s face. There was no need to worry about a small cut on an immortal person’s finger, but maybe she was just worried about their meal. “How’s Booker? Is he…”

“Oh yeah! You called right on time. Hold on,” carefully, Nile walked to the closed door of Booker’s room, listened for just a moment, and walked away to answer Copley, “Yeah, literally on therapy right now. I think it’s going well? I mean, he’s crying, that’s a good sign, right?”

Copley smiled a little proudly at her, “And you?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m good, yeah. Therapy is alright, same as ever, as good as it can go without explaining that I can’t die,” she made a face that pulled a laugh out of the man on the phone and then chuckled along with him.

“What about Andy and Quynh?”

“Oh they’re outside, let me check,” Nile leaned on one of the windows and nodded, “Yeah, Quynh’s shooting arrows. A normal Tuesday.”

“Nile, it’s  _ Friday _ . And you know that’s not what I was asking,” Copley told her, just slightly more serious.

The youngest member of the team sighed gravely. “She’s literally shooting damn arrows right now, Copley. They’ll kill me, and that’s  _ never  _ going to be a pleasant experience. How do you even begin to suggest therapy to two immortal beings?”

“It worked with Booker,” he reminded her.

“Oh yeah, because Booker is  _ so  _ difficult to convince. I bet I could get him to sell us all out to- Oh wait!”

“ _ Nile _ ,” Copley said her name in a warning tone, but the spark in the woman’s eyes was enough to let him know she was joking, mostly.

“Alright, alright, I’ll try,” she promised, and soon enough they were saying their goodbyes and Nile was venturing outside the house.

Outside it was a beautiful and sunny day. Andy was sitting on the grass and looking uncharacteristically relaxed, which probably had everything to do with the woman standing up beside her. Unlike Andy, Quynh looked ready to go to war. The oldest out of the two of them had come up with the idea of buying a new bow and arrow for Quynh, as similar as possible to the ones they’d been used to back then. The gesture had pulled a genuinely grateful and joyous, bright smile from Quynh, the first of that kind that Nile had seen. So, there they were, sharing casual conversation while one of them passed arrows for the other to carelessly shoot to the trees that surrounded their home. It was a beautiful sight, almost made you forget all the pain those two had had to go through to get to this place.

Nile was walking toward them, just opening her mouth to greet them when instead she had to scream and jump to her side. “What the fuck?!” she yelled, looking back and forth between the newest broken window of the house, and Quynh’s grin, “Did you just shoot an arrow at me?!”

“No… I aimed  _ close  _ to your head. I had a feeling you’d dodge it,” Quynh smiled.

“Hey Nile,” Andy greeted her casually, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened, which Nile figured meant she’d just have to accept this was normal now.

“Dodge it, sure,” she mumbled under her breath and attempted a smile as she moved closer, “How are you guys? You look good.”

Quynh hummed thoughtfully, “Is that flirting? My intuition is a little rusty. You look good too.”

“Jesus Christ,” Nile whispered, touching her forehead with a hand and pretending she didn't hear Andy laughing. “Okay, you know what, forget it. I just… I wanted to… mention something.”

That got Andy’s attention. “Nile, is everything alright?” she asked, finally standing up from the grass.

“Yeah, yeah,” the younger woman shrugged, “I just, Booker’s in therapy just now, you know?” Andy nodded, Quynh watched the exchange with interest. “And you know that I’m also on therapy, right?”

“Not interested, Nile.”

“ _ Andy- _ ”

“What are you talking about?” Quynh interrupted them, mindlessly twirling an arrow on one hand.

“Nile,” Andy said her name with a cautionary tone.

After letting out a deep sigh, Nile decided to go on with it. “Listen, just please listen, okay? Let me explain it. I think this could work. I think this could be really,  _ really  _ good for any of us, for all of us, for anybody,” she insisted, unfraid of letting her voice and her face reveal how hopeful she was. After all, she did it because she genuinely cared about them, that’d never have to be a secret.

So, Nile got her chance to explain in detail what therapy was, and what it could be while hiding a very important part of themselves, and why it could help. She tried not to get too optimistic, knowing there was a chance Quynh only listened out of curiosity and Andy stayed just to keep her company. But there was undeniable interest on Quynh’s part. Nile couldn’t be too sure, she had only known her for a short amount of time, but she hoped maybe Andy would understand what the troubled look in Quynh’s eyes meant. Could it be a flash of pain, followed by a spark of hope?

“I’ll think about it,” Quynh nodded formally when Nile was done with her explanation. There was finality in her tone, and for a moment the three of them stood still, not knowing what to do, until finally, Quynh nodded her head to invite Nile forward. “Now, come on, let me teach you how to shoot with one of these. Andromache was never that good at archery.”

“Hey!” Andy barely protested, half laughing, and lightly hit the other woman’s arm with one of the arrows. They both laughed, and exchanged a smile.

Just then, taking her place beside them, Nile started smiling too. She was suddenly overcome with a strong certainty that her friends, her  _ family  _ would be alright. They would all be alright.


End file.
